360 AQITARI^E IN FRANCE. 



to resort to the scheme above-mentioned for filling 

 their tanks, a pure supply of sea- water being attain- 

 able with scarcely any trouble whatever. A stone 

 jar should be kept for this purpose only, and care 

 taken that the vessel is perfectly free from any 

 smell, as that of spirits, dirty corks, or the like, as 

 any such impurity would quickly spoil the water. 



It may not be uninteresting to some of my readers 

 to know, that in France an aquarium cannot be 

 established with the same ease as in England. In 

 the former country ' the whole contents of the sea 

 itself is a contraband article, that is, the contents 

 of the salt sea of the English Channel or the Atlantic 

 Ocean/ One writer tells us, that staying on the 

 French coast, he kept sea- anemones alive in glasses, 

 but was frequently warned by his friends to be care- 

 ful how he fetched water from the sea, lest the 

 custom-officers should interrupt him. ' My bottle/ 

 to use the writer's own words, 'being very small, 

 they let it pass, on the principle that the law does 

 not care about extremest trifles ; had it been a pail- 

 ful, the case would have been different. A lady 

 keeping a marine aquarium, explained her wants to 

 the local head of the customs. He calne and saw it 

 found it beautiful, and being a gentlemanly man, 

 with some love for natural history, he gave a written 

 order for the procuring of any reasonable quantity of 

 water from the sea. Every time the needful element 

 was brought from the shore, it was accompanied by 



