The Pond 



wretched animals kicking about in the water! 



Smith and glazier are content with their 

 work. I myself am pleased. For all its rustic 

 air, the apparatus does not lack elegance. It 

 looks very well, standing on a little table in 

 front of a window visited by the sun for the 

 greater part of the day. Its holding capacity 

 is some ten or eleven gallons. What shall we 

 call it? An aquarium? No, that would be 

 too pretentious and would, very unjustly, sug- 

 gest the aquatic toy filled with rock-work, 

 water-falls and gold-fish beloved of the dwell- 

 ers in Suburbia. Let us preserve the gravity 

 of serious things and not treat my learned 

 trough as though it were a drawing-room fu- 

 tility. We will call it the glass pond. 



I furnish it with a heap of those limy in- 

 crustations wherewith certain springs in the 

 neighbourhood cover the dead clump of rushes. 

 It is light, full of holes and gives a faint sug- 

 gestion of a coral-reef. Moreover, it is cov- 

 ered with a short, green, velvety moss, a 

 downy sward of infinitesimal pond-weed. I 

 count on this modest vegetation to keep the 

 water in a reasonably wholesome state, with- 

 out driving me to frequent renewals which 

 would disturb the work of my colonies. Sani- 

 tation and quiet are the first conditions of suc- 

 179 



