38 A Brief History of a River Tank. 



A BRIEF HISTORY OF A RIVER TAN T K. 



BY SHIRLEY HIBBERD. 



An object with, which, most of my friends are familiar is a 

 plain rectangular tank, containing rockwork, water, and gold 

 fishes, and which occupies a conspicuous place in the entrance- 

 hall of my residence at Stoke Newington. It is such a very 

 unpretending affair that I dare say many of my friends will at 

 this stage of my " brief history " think that I have made a 

 mistake in selecting such a subject for a paper in the Intellec- 

 tual Observer, but if they will just read on, I have no doubt 

 I shall be able to satisfy them that my tank is an object of 

 some interest, not only to myself personally, but to the culti- 

 vators of aquaria everywhere. In the Booh of the Aqua- 

 rium I have endeavoured to expound the " natural system " 

 of tank management, which, as its name implies, is the only 

 system by which satisfactory results of a permanent nature 

 are to be obtained. The history of aquaria in the most extensive 

 sense, is simply a history of the rival pretensions and diverse 

 results of the artificial and natural systems of management. 

 The artificial system is, perhaps, no system at all, because the 

 practitioner seeks merely to gratify his fancy in forming an 

 assemblage of aquatic plants and animals ; the tanks are 

 elaborately decorated with fountains, grottoes, and banners of 

 vegetation, and stocked with crowds of fish. 



Under some circumstances the artificial system answers 

 admirably ; in others it is a failure from the first, and every 

 repetition of the experiment ends in the same disappointment. 

 For all show purposes the artificial system is invaluable. It 

 has often been my lot to exhibit tanks at soirees, converza- 

 ziones, etc., and they have always been greatly admired ; but 

 so thoroughly artificial have been the arrangements that I have 

 sometimes taken up from the garden tufts of Holcus saccha- 

 ratus, Arundo donax, and other large plants of graceful habit, 

 and, having washed the earth from their roots, have planted 

 {i.e. fixed) them in good positions., pro tern., for crowds of gold 

 fishes, minnows, bleak, etc., to gambol amcmgst. I remember 

 some years ago, when visiting Leeds to deliver some lectures 

 on aquaria, I had the privilege of inspecting the tanks of Dr. 

 Hobson, which were the most satisfactory exemplifications of 

 artificial management I had then or have since seen. A 

 very elegant room was appropriated to a series of vessels, 

 in which was kept up a constant and copious run of water, 

 the stream passing from tank to tank, the tanks being in a 

 succession of levels, so that from one end of the room 



