154 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[July 1, 1863. 



, AQUAEIAN DIEEICULTIES. 



"^J"E. EAMSAY'S "Hints for Marine Aquaria" 

 -^-^ (pp. 129, 130) are plain and sensible 

 eiiougli, but they -will do little or nothing towards 

 reviving a taste for private aquaria. 



It is quite true that aquarium-keeping is not 

 easy : it is much worse than that, for in nine cases 

 out of ten it is a wearisome and profitless battling 

 with difficulties, ending with failure and disgust. 

 " Overstocking is a serious fault," says Mr. Eamsay, 

 truly ; but by far the greater number of the general 

 mass of amateurs have no previous acquaintance 

 whatever Avith natural history or physics, and have 

 not the mildest notion of what "overstocking" an 

 aquarium means ; nor is it otherwise than very diffi- 

 cult to teach them what it is in so many words, be- 

 cause an aquarium which may be "overstocked" 

 under some conditions may not be so under others. 

 So also, the same quantity of water may vary in its 

 capacity of sustaining animal life, not according to 

 its bulk, but according to its distribution, and the 

 amount of variation is continually fluctuating. Then, 

 if anything like a good variety of creatures are kept, 

 they must be maintained in several separate vessels, 

 and this demands more space and trouble than can 

 be usually afforded by persons having other demands 

 on their premises and time. Eurthermore, there are 

 many animals which cannot be kept at all in any 

 ordinary captivity, and these creati^'es are those 

 which are oftenest obtained with facility. Others 

 are too large for certain vessels. It is this absence 

 of the possibility of giving definite and arbitrary 

 rules for the guidance of beginners which causes the 

 great difficulty. 



Mr. Eamsay properly recommends "especial at- 

 tention to temperature" as regulated by "opening or 

 shutting doors or windows, burning gas, partially 

 covering the tanks with damp cloths, and adopt- 

 ing other means ;" but most people will not do 

 these things, whether they understand or not why 

 they are recommended to do them ; they would much 

 rather give up their aquaria than be put to any 

 such trouble, and they have given them up, while the 

 vei-y few exceptional persons, such as Mr. Ramsay 

 and his lady friend — personally known to me — and 

 who are painstaking and persevering, are those only 

 who succeed with anything like decency. They 

 slowly and patiently work out their success by the 

 only method in which it can be attained — actual ex- 

 perience and the intelligent application of broad 

 principles. They are contented to do a little, but 

 they do it well, while others wishing to do much 

 with insufficient means, in the end do nothing. 



If anything could be found to re-create a taste for 

 the domestication of marine animals, it would be 

 the discovery of some convenient and cheap mode of 

 producing a stream and motion in sea-water aquaria, 



continuously, as the present methods of doing so 

 are much too cumbersome and expensive for most 

 pockets. Mr. Edwards, of Menai, has announced 

 that he makes a machitfe to answer this purpose in 

 the required manner ; but nothing has come of it. 

 The value of a current of water in a tank is very 

 great, inasmuch that it is to an aquarium that 

 which a fly-wheel is to a steam-engine (and even 

 more), carrying the machine over its " dead-points ;" 

 storing up power in reserve ; and smoothing down 

 the sharp angles of all difficulties. Eor example, it 

 requires extreme care in feeding the animals in a 

 motioidess marine tank, in such manner that the 

 food or its after-consequences shall not interfere 

 with the transparency of the water. The water is 

 also apt to become otherwise than clear from the 

 accidental non-removal of a dead animal, or from 

 excess of light, and from many other causes ; but 

 wlierever a stream exists, the fluid seldom becomes 

 turbid from any reason, or if it does lose its clear- 

 ness, the opening of a stopcock will allow it to run 

 off through a filter into a reservoir below the tank, 

 from whence the same water, bright, cool, and well 

 oxygenated, may be again forced up into the tank. 

 There is indeed no comparison to be made between 

 the condition of animals kept in aquaria with 

 and without a stream, and yet I know of only 

 ten stream and tide aquaria to be found in 

 England and on the Continent ; and of these, five 

 belong to public institutions and five to private 

 persons. I think I may write on this subject with 

 something like authority, for I have pursued it as an 

 exclusive occupation, zealously and unremittingly, 

 for the last dozen years, and during that period I 

 have collected the names and addresses of not fewer 

 than eight thousand persons interested in aquarian 

 matters, and for these persons I have set up, under 

 all possible circumstances, many hundreds of Aquaria 

 (the exact number is 3,548), and out of these not more 

 than about the odd forty-eight are now in successful 

 operation. All the others belonged to individuals 

 who merely took up the thing as a transient fashion, 

 or who, knowing and caring a little about it at first, 

 soon abandoned it from discovering that so long as 

 aquaria are made for houses, instead of houses for 

 aquaria, no satisfactory result could be obtained. 



There seems to be no inclination on the part of 

 wealthy persons to incur the necessary expense of 

 erecting and managing great aquaria properly, and 

 therefore the subject is left to a few persevering 

 naturalists, who attain a certain good result by con- 

 fining themselves in a small way to certain possi- 

 bilities ; and to two or three public bodies who find 

 that it is a remunerative commercial speculation 

 when it is well and largely carried out by the intro- 

 duction of machinery and of all requisite appli- 



^^°^^- W. Alford Lloyd, 



Zoological Gardens, Hamburg, 



