114 THE SEA. 



"Full fathoms five thy father lies; 



Of his bones are coral made ; 

 Those are pearls that were his eyes. 



Nothing of him that doth fade 

 But doth suffer a sea change " 



for he was enabled safely and successfully to examine in the most hidden recesses and retreats 

 of the rocks and sea many wonderful creatures, the knowledge of which had been hitherto 

 hidden from the scientific world. 



The invention, or introduction rather, of the salt-water aquarium enables any one nowa- 

 days to study in comfort and at leisure the habits and peculiarities of marine animals. There 

 is a drawing extant of an aquarium bearing the date 1742. Sir John Graham Daly ell, 

 a well-known author, had a modest one early in this century. A sea-anemone taken from 

 the sea in 1828, and placed in this glass tank, was, according to his biographer, alive and 

 well in 1873; so that M. Figuier in claiming its first suggestion for M. Charles des 

 Moulins is wrong. The fact is that the ancients kept, not for scientific, but for gastro- 

 nomic purposes, fish and molluscs in tanks, and fed and studied their habits and needs in 

 order to fit them for the table. These were practical aquaria. 



M. des Moulins, however, and, in our own country, Gosse and Warington, deserve full 

 credit for advocating the establishment of these beautiful sources of rational pleasure and 

 improvement, and for showing how they might best be kept in working order. To Des 

 Moulins is also due the proposition that the animal life therein required the presence of 

 vegetable life to keep it in natural condition. In the fresh- water aquarium duckweed Avas 

 found to act efficiently, and a similar idea is now adopted in regard to marine plants in 

 the salt-water aquarium. Sea-weeds do not usually bear transplanting, but sea water is so 

 impregnated with seeds or germs, that by placing a few stones or rocks in the tank 

 a crop of marine vegetation is ensured. 



"On shell or stone is dropped the embryo seed, 

 And quickly vegetates a vital breed." 



Our own fish-houses at the Zoological Gardens were first opened in 1853, while those 

 of the French Acclimatisation Society in the Bois de Boulogne were inaugurated in 1861. 

 Now almost every capital possesses one on a grand scale. That at Naples is especially 

 noted. At the Continental fishery exhibitions, held at Amsterdam, The Hague, Boulogne, 

 Havre, Arcachon, &c., temporary aquaria always form part of the attractions. 



The dimensions of the great aquarium at Brighton arc as follows: Its area is 716 feet 

 by 100 feet, the great tank alone containing 110,000 gallons of water, and having a plate 

 glass front 130 feet long, through which the habits of very large fish may be studied. 

 The rock- work of the tanks is artificial, and admirably adapted to give shelter to the fish 

 and crustaceans which disport in them. The management of a large aquarium involves 

 constant care, and it is quite possible to kill its inhabitants by too frequently changing 

 the water by over-kindness, in fact. 



The aquaria at Brighton and the Crystal Palace are very differently constructed and 

 managed. At the former there is no actual circulation of water from one tank to another, but 



