CHAPTER IX. 



SUB-MARINE YEGETATION. 

 SEAWEEDS, AND THEIR HAUNTS. 



/^R'E WATER.— The water from the ocean itself is, 



beyond all question, the best for a marine Aqua- 

 rium. No artificial substitute can approach it in 

 point of excellence. It should always be procured, too, 

 not from the beach, or from any spot in the vicinity of the 

 shore. A trifling sum will tempt the cook or steward of any 

 sea-going vessel to fill you a cask from the clear and open 

 ocean ; and this done, you have the material provided by 

 nature herself, and with which, therefore, other things 

 being equal, her creatures have no right to express dis- 

 satisfaction. The cask itself, if not new, should never 

 have contained, at least, anything calculated to impart a 

 taint to the wood, as the sea water would be certain to 

 acquire, from that defect, some quality that would, or 

 might, render it fatal to all the life deposited in it. No cask 

 that has been used for spirits, wine, acids, chemicals, etc., 

 will answer. Even the bun^s should be, if possible, quite 



