CHAPTER II. 

 HISTOEY OF THE AQUA VIVARIUM. 



IF there has been no open controversy, there 

 has been a good deal of latent feeling on the sub- 

 ject of the invention of collections of plants and 

 animals in water. The subject has not appeared 

 to me to be one of so great interest as to demand 

 original research, and I shall therefore speak of the 

 history as far as my own memory serves me. To 

 whomsoever credit may be given for perfecting these 

 arrangements, I cannot for a moment doubt that 

 the original idea was taken from the success attend- 

 ing the cultivation of plants in closed glass cases, 

 on the plan recommended by Mr. Ward. It was 

 his genius that saw, in the accidental sprouting of 

 a fern in a glass bottle, the means of maintaining 

 fresh vegetation in the midst of the smoke and dirt 

 of London. When he had succeeded in fitting up 

 his first fernery in Wellclose Square, he was not 

 long in discovering, that in the little pools which he 

 so ingeniously constructed there, gold fishes and 

 other creatures would live in the water, provided 

 plants were present, as animals lived in the air of 

 his fernery. The culture of ferns in cases, by 

 Mr. Ward's friends, led naturally to the culture of 

 water-plants in the same cases, and air-breathing 

 and water-breathing animals were introduced, to 

 increase the interest of the scene. As early as 

 June, 1849, Mr. Ward stated, at a meeting of the 

 British Association at Oxford, that he had suc- 

 ceeded, not only in growing sea-weeds in sea-water, 

 but in sea-water artificially made. This must cer- 

 tainly be regarded as the first step towards realizing 



