158 GLAUCUS ; OR, 



One more hint before we part. If, after all, 

 you are not going down to the sea-side this year, 

 and have no ojiportunities of testing the " won- 

 ders of the shore," you may still study Natural 

 History in your own drawing-room, by looking a 

 little into " the wonders of the pond." 



I am not jesting ; a fresh-water aquarium, 

 though by no means as beautiful as a salt- 

 water one, is even more easily established. A 

 glass jar, floored with two or tliree inches of 

 pond-mud (which should be covered with fine 

 gravel to prevent the mud washing up) ; a 

 specimen of each of two water-plants which 

 you may buy now at any good shop in Covent 

 Garden, ValUsneria spiralis (which is said to 

 give to the canvas-backed duck of America its 

 peculiar richness of flavor), and Anacharis 

 alsinastrum, that magical weed which, lately 

 introduced from Canada among timber, has 

 multiplied, self-sown, to so prodigious an extent, 

 that it bids fair in a few years to choke the 

 navigation not only of our canals and fen-rivers, 

 but of the Thames itself: — these (in themselves, 

 from the transparency of their circulation, in- 

 teresting microscopic objects) for oxygen-breed- 

 ing vegetables ; and for animals, the pickings of 



