18 



THE FAMILY AQUARIUM. 



Would you desire an aquatic flower-show ? 



The sea and the lake have their gardens, beside which 

 the garish beauty of man's proudest efforts at floriculture 

 pale into sickly impertinence. Behold them, reproduced 

 in all their splendor, in the Aquaria ! 



There lie the quiet Corallines^ from the rosy-tinted 

 arboret of jointed stone,'' or its blue and purple con- 

 gener, up to the richest group of carmine that the eye 

 would choose to dwell upon. In striking contrast, behold 

 the delicate green Ulva—ihQ pale, sulphur-colored Melo- 

 hesia — the bright crimson Rhodymenia — the spotted 

 Asjperococcus — the fan-formed and wildly radiated Padina 

 — the Sea-leaf, formed of twenty thousand or more 

 cradles for young Polyps " — the Trees of Glass, covered 

 with trumpet-shaped bells, each one of which is the cosy 

 frame of a delicate monster "—the Water Soldier, with 

 its handsome white flower, and its pointed leaf that, like 

 a sharpened sword, pricks the fingers of the unwary con- 

 noisseur — the Iris, rainbow-colored as it is rainbow-called 

 — the Grace of the Waters, with its dainty white flower- 

 ets peeping from out their bed of purplish leaves — the 

 Star wort, that wears rosettes — the Duck Weeds, with 

 their game-preserves of diminutive living creatures, the 

 provender of fish — and a goodly host in addition, whose 

 names we cannot at this moment remember, and whose 

 captivating qualities we have not, at present, leisure to 

 describe. 



Would you witness the grand spectacle of Life, as 



