294 .BEIGHTON AQUAEIUM. 



for obtaining the element in which they live. The Act of 

 Parliament for the erection of the Brighton Aquarium was 

 obtained in July 1868, and a year afterwards the building was 

 commenced, and the aquarium was provisionally opened at 

 Easter 1872, on the occasion of a visit of his Eoyal Highness 

 Prince Arthur ; and on the following August, when the town 

 was honoured by a visit from the British Association, the 

 exhibition was finally thrown open to the public. The great 

 aquarium at the Crystal Palace was opened a year earlier. 

 Both aquariums are very large. One of the tanks in the 

 Brighton Aquarium is 100 feet long by 40 feet in width, and 

 holds 110,000 gallons of sea water. Another tank, the next 

 largest, is 50 feet by 30 feet, and is situated just opposite the 

 other large one. No one can pay a visit to either institution 

 without being struck with the beautiful series of living portraits 

 of fish and crustaceans which have been provided for his amuse- 

 ment and instruction. The marine animals which make the 

 best show are undoubtedly the lobsters and crabs and other 

 crustaceans : some of the lobsters are exceedingly beautiful, and 

 the grace of movement exhibited by the shrimps and prawns as 

 they bound through the depths of their watery home cannot be 

 excelled by any land animal that I can name. A great variety 

 of what are technically known as " ground fish " are exhibited 

 in the tanks in both of these large aquaria, and in time some 

 interesting discoveries will doubtless result from the continued 

 observation by the resident naturalists of the haddock and the 

 herring. It is a treat of a really scientific kind to see the latter 

 fish in captivity. I have seen the spawn as it burst into 

 existence, a mere thread which lived but for an instant, and 

 died as soon as .it was born, reminding one of the simile of 

 Eobert Bums 



" A snowflake falling in the river, 

 A moment white, then lost for ever." 



It is an achievement to have captured living herrings, and it is a 

 still greater feat to keep them alive as we see them in the 

 Brighton aquarium. What may we not learn from that one 

 experiment? As I have agaiu and again iterated, what is 

 chiefly wanted to be known with regard to aU fishes is at 

 what age they become reproductive ; that is the key to the real 

 economy of the fisheries. Let us but ascertain how long it is 

 ere a fish reaches the age of reproduction, and the greatest 

 secret of the sea will then be in our keeping. 



