72 A MANUAL 



Another wa}^ of aerating the water is hy means of 

 the fountain abeady described ; another, by causing 

 water to fall in drops from one vessel into another. 

 To effect this purpose, we may arrange our glasses 

 in two or more rows, one above the other (say on 

 shelves), and place in each vessel a i)iece of wick 

 cotton with a long end hanging over the margin of 

 the glass. These will work as siphons, and ensui'e 

 a regular fall of water, and the overflow of the lower 

 range may be caught in pans and carried to fill the 

 upper glasses when empty. By this means we may 

 imitate the flow and ebb of the tide, if we chance to 

 think it one of the necessary conditions of our 

 anemones' existence. But of all plans of aeration 

 the simplest and most effectual is to use a glass 

 syringe for the purpose, and the best syringes are 

 those glass ear-syringes with bent tubes for self- 

 adjustment, which one may buy at any chemist's 

 shop. Draw off every morning a portion of the con- 

 tents of each vessel into a tumbler, and then work it 

 with the syringe till it is a tumbler of froth, and then 

 return it to your anemones, and I am sure, by expe- 

 rience, that you can give them nothing else which 

 will afford them an equal amount of pleasure. The 

 syringe is most useful in many other ways. It 

 serves instead of a siphon to remove water from 

 delicate specimens ; it enables you to wash the slime 

 which adheres in rings to many of the anemones ; 

 it will remove gravel or decaying matter from the 



