112 PBBSH-WATEB AQUAEIA. 



North of England. For the aquarium, " cold-water " fish 

 should always be chosen — that is, those which have been 

 born in ponds uninfluenced by artificial heat : they are much 

 hardier than the " hot-water " ones. Not seldom the latter 

 will be found on their backs in the tank gasping for breath 

 and apparently dying. When this is the case, they may be 

 revived by placing them in running water, under a tap for 

 instance, or by dropping a very little brandy down their 

 throats, or by putting them for some time in fairly warm 

 water (about 90deg.). This last remedy — the simplest — ^is 

 perhaps the most effectual. 



" Cold-water " fish, if properly managed, hardly ever suffer 

 from illness, and rarely die except from accident or old age; 

 indeed, I have found that the mortality of fish (not Gold-fish 

 only) in an aquarium is very far less than that of birds in 

 an aviary. Mr. T. H. Jones, of Woolwich, has told me, and 

 has kindly allowed me to miention the fact, that he placed a 

 Silver-fish in his aquarium on 20th May, 1853, and that it 

 lived there until l^th April, 1883, a period of thirty years all 

 but about six weeks. This fish was fed during that time 

 upon raw meat (beef or mutton), and cut into narrow pieces 

 to resemble worms. The food was given about thrice a 

 week. About eighteen months ago I was in a bird-dealer's 

 shop, and while there a lady came in and asked for some 

 Gold-fish, adding the remark that she could never get hers 

 to live more than about half a year. On hearing this I 

 ventured to ask, as politely as I could, whether she fed her 

 fish. "Oh, no," she replied, "I never give them anything to 

 eat." As she said this, the shopkeeper exclaimed : " Never 

 feed your fish if you want 'em to live." That lady's fish had 

 died the very painful death of slow starvation. And her 

 fish, alas ! I fear, are not the only ones which so die. The 

 fish this man sold were healthy "cold-water" fish, and this I 

 knew, for I had bought several of him, which had then been 

 living in my aquarium for years, and are alive still. Some 

 of my friends also had bought fish of him, with the same 

 satisfactory result. And this lady's fish died, not because 

 they were, unfitted to live in confinement, but because they 



