244 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



applied himself to the preservation of fresh-water animals 

 by means of the exhalation of oxygen by living water- 

 plants. Philip Gosse at once supplied him with particulars 

 of his own experiments with marine forms, and when- he 

 returned to London in November, he brought Mr. War- 

 ington a small collection of living seaweeds and animals 

 which were successfully ensconced in one of that gentle- 

 man's vivaria. There was no sort of rivalry between these 

 earnest and amiable investigators, but a little later on, 

 when the aquarium had become a fashionable thing, Philip 

 Gosse was accustomed to say that if it was needful to 

 dispute about an invention which was virtually simul- 

 taneous, it might be said that Warington had invented 

 the vivarium and he the marine aquarium. 



Little time was lost in making a practical use of the 

 experience of the summer. Early in December, with the 

 active co-operation of the secretary, Mr. D. W. Mitchell, 

 a large glass tank was set up in the Zoological Gardens, 

 in Regent's Park, and stocked by Philip Gosse with about 

 two hundred specimens of marine animals and plants 

 brought up from Ilfracombe two months before, and still 

 in a perfectly healthy condition. The Zoological Society 

 soon found that this tank, in the new Fish House then 

 just erected, was exceedingly popular, and they determined 

 to make the newly invented aquarium a feature of the 

 Gardens. They projected a series of seven tanks, and in 

 order to fill them they made a proposition that Gosse 

 should go down again to the seaside for the sole purpose 

 of collecting specimens. This suited him very well. He 

 found that it was absolutely needful for his health that 

 he should not work much indoors, but be out in the fresh 

 air for a great part of each day, and he agreed that so 

 soon as the spring began he should go down to the coast 

 of Dorsetshire. 



