
MARINE AQUARIA 
comfortable animals and plants are preferable to a larger number in sickly 
or dying condition. 
In handling the animals, to place them into the aquarium, the anemones 
and similar fauna should be introduced together with the shells and stones 
to which they may adhere. All the other low forms should be handled 
in a spoon; while fishes, crabs, etc., should be transferred with a shallow 
net. None should be forcibly removed from any object to which they 
are attached, as it is always injurious, very often fatal to them. After 
they have been put into the aquarium, they should not be touched, and if 
it is necessary to assure oneself that they are alive, a very small glass tube 
will serve as a blowpipe and a breath of air will cause sufficient movement 
to determine the question. 
A very little experience and observation will enable the fancier to 
distinguish between a sick or dead inmate and a healthy and living one. 
If the shape and position of the anemones have not changed, a clouded 
appearance forms about the sponges, the bristles of the pipe worms remain 
unchanged and motionless, the snails on one spot and enclosed in their 
shells, the mussels, clams and oxygen in the same position with constantly 
gaping valves and no appearance of water currents over them, the crabs 
without movement of the eyes or antenne, and the fishes torpid and 
motionless; these are all suspicious signs requiring investigation. 
Marine Scavencers. ‘The scavengers of the marine aquarium are 
gasteropods, shrimps and crabs, which are effectual when the amount of 
food is properly regulated. 
ACCLIMITIZATION IN THE Marine Aguarium. Deaths are most 
likely to occur when the animals are first introduced, as the changed con- 
ditions during their transportation affect them even more than existence 
in a properly arranged, well aerated aquarium; but after they have become 
acclimated to their new surroundings, the deaths are not more numerous 
than with the fauna of the freshwater aquarium. Trials with the marine 
aquarium are earnestly advocated; they have a novelty and beauty all their 
own, may be set up anywhere and maintained at no greater expense than 
the keeping of the finely bred goldfishes. 
CoLLecTinG ror THE Marine Aquarium. In making collections 
the periods of lowest water twice a month, at the new and full moon, give 
the most satisfactory results, but especially at full moon in the months of 
September and October and in March and April. A sandy beach may 
not yield many specimens, but back-bays and thoroughfares, their 
borders and outlets, are favorable localities. Cliffs, rocks and boulder- 
strewn beaches, or where tide-pools and depressions have formed, overflown 
at high tide and above low-water when the tide recedes, are the best; and 
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