10 THE AQUAVIVARIUM. 



the marine A qua vivarium. From this time ex- 

 periments of various kinds were tried, for the 

 purpose of enabling persons away from the sea- 

 side to keep marine animals. A lady in London 

 frequently surprised the scientific societies by exhi- 

 biting beautiful living specimens of rare marine 

 animals ; and these she succeeded in keeping for 

 many months by aerating the sea- water by pouring 

 it from one vessel to another. 



Previous to the year 1850, many experiments 

 had been made in London of keeping sticklebacks, 

 gold fish, and other animals, in jars containing 

 Valismria. I find, from some of my own notes, 

 that I had sticklebacks in a jar containing Valis- 

 neria and Water Starwort, in 1849. In March, 

 1850, Mr. Robert Warington read a paper before 

 the Chemical Society, which was afterwards pub- 

 lished in the journal of that Society, in which he 

 described the general conditions necessary to the 

 growth of plants and animals in jars of water, and 

 gave an account of his own arrangements for that 

 purpose. 



The practicability of establishing arrangements 

 of this kind had been often discussed in the council 

 of the Zoological Society, and in 1852 they deter- 

 mined to erect, under the skilful guidance of 

 Mr. Mitchell, a house in their gardens in Regent's 

 Park, large enough to hold several water-tanks for 

 marine and fresh-water animals. In the spring of 

 1853 this house was opened, and at once gave an 

 immense impetus to the establishment of water- 

 vivaries. Most of the marine creatures contained 

 in it were obtained by Mr. Gosse, who had pre- 

 viously cultivated marine animals with plants in 

 sea-water. An account of his experiments is given 

 in his very interesting " Rambles of a Naturalist 

 on the Devonshire Coast." In 1854 Mr. Gosse 



