TEOPICAL AQUARIUM FISHES 115- 



Collecting Specimens. The best places for collecting a miscellane- 

 ous assortment of marine animals are the back bays, pools, pockets, 

 marshes and small streams where the ocean overflows at high tide and 

 recedes from at low. Rocky coasts furnish particularly fertile fields for 

 the aquatic hunter, and those of New England offer rich attractions in 

 varied and wonderfully beautiful vegetation. Wood's Hole is a particu- 

 larly famed point for all sorts of marine naturalists and collectors. How- 

 ever, anybody can go to the beach nearest home and gather material that 

 will well repay for the effort. Two persons in bathing suits operating a 

 seine 4 by 14 feet (see page 82) will be surprisingly successful right in the 

 surf anywhere. As before stated, the little sheltered places, pools around 

 breakwaters, piers and rocks should be thoroughly investigated by hand 

 and net. As with freshwater, let the collector not be too ambitious for 

 numbers. It is better to get a few good specimens home alive and well 

 than have a bucketfull of dead and dying. Unfortunately for those inland 

 there is nobody at the present time in America making a commercial busi- 

 ness of marine collections for the household aquarium. We have reason 

 to believe this could soon be developed into a profitable business, such as 

 has been done by many in Europe. Germany, with no seacoast of her 

 own, has thousands of successful marine aquaria stocked mostly by 

 dealers. 



Tropical marine fishes are of dazzling beauty, a fact enthusiastically 

 attested by those visiting any of our large American public aquaria, or 

 by those so fortunate as to travel in Bermuda. Most of our tropical 

 specimens are collected at Bermuda and at Key West, Florida. The 

 various kinds of kelp and coral fishes make quarium specimens of such 

 bewitching beauty that any attempted word-description of them would 

 appear extravagant. Anyone wishing to make a collection of them should 

 employ a local fisherman at the collecting point who knows the haunts 

 and ways of the fishes, and who understands the danger of sudden tropical 

 storms. Such collections should be shipped in a liberal quantity of water 

 and artificially aerated by pump or pouring whenever the train is still for 

 more than fifteen minutes. On shipboard, new water of the proper 

 temperature should be frequently given. 



Stocking the Aquarium. Perhaps we can repeat to advantage that 

 it is better to under- than to over-stock the aquarium. This is particularly 

 true of the marine aquarium, first, because if we spoil the water by dead 

 animals it is some trouble to obtain more, and second, because the crea- 

 tures are used to more oxygen in the vast ocean than can be had in a 

 crowded aquarium. 



Particular vigilance needs to be exercised when the animals are first 

 introduced, as some of them may not survive the change. 



