668 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A SCHOOL FOE THE STUDY OF LIFE UNDEB THE SEA. 



(Naples Aquarium.) 

 Br ELEANOR HODGEN PATTERSON. 



nno go deep down under the sea, in the warm waters of the south, 

 -L where exist not only the varieties of fish with which we are 

 familiar, but thousands of jewel-like forms of animal life never seen 

 by us, has hitherto been impossible to any but the boldest fishermen 

 and divers. But of late years in the small aquarium at Naples the sea 

 has been brought up, so to speak, upon the earth for us to see these 

 strange creatures as they exist in their homes under the water, as they 

 eat their food, as they love and hate, and prey upon each other. 



Small as the collection at first seems to be, there is no zoological 

 station in the world to compare with it. Probably there never will 

 be again. Because of its advantageous station on the shores of the 

 Mediterranean, where it is claimed the waters which wash Italy 

 and Sicily yield a greater variety of sea life than even tropical 

 waters, and also its comparative accessibility to all countries, the 

 scholars who come here from all over the world find that they are 

 able to study here as they can nowhere else the strange habits of the 

 tiny animals down at the bottom of the sea. 



There is no superfluous room taken up in the Naples aquarium 

 for the fish that may be studied in aquariums elsewhere. Only the 

 rarest, the strangest, the most curious creatures are here to be seen. 



But one room of the beautiful building devoted to the zoological 

 station, which stands on that street of Naples running along the sea, 

 is shown to the public. One walks into it from the level of the 

 street, and the transition from the light outside to strange semi-dark- 

 ness is as if one were to suddenly find himself walking upon the 

 bottom of the sea. 



The light comes only from above, shining through water of many 

 hundreds of cubic feet, on to what seems at first a garden of moving 

 flowers behind tanks of clear glass, which seem, so complete is the 

 illusion, not like glass at all, but water. The visitor walks along 

 dark alleys lined on both sides with these brilliant tanks, and the 

 beautiful sea animals are so close that it seems easy to touch them. It 

 is like being in a narrow, dark theater with the stage all around and 

 about, strangely illuminated, not by footlights, but by a radiance 

 from above. 



There are about thirty tanks in all, and at the very first of these 

 glass-walled vats we stopped entranced. Behind it were piles of 

 rocks shining in the water, and from every crevice grew what seemed 



