FISH AND CRUSTACEA FOR MARINE AQIJARIUM. 119 



deep but they are sad rakes, if naturalists do not 

 calumniate them, and, like other wicked ones, are much 

 more mischievous than they seem. 



CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 



So much for the Aquarium ! The unthinking may call 

 it a toy. The reflecting will aptly term it a wonder. 

 But may we not make of it something more ? Who loves 

 not the billowy ocean, with its wild, weird-like, melancholy 

 wail, and its light, dancing foam-tops, shaking, as they 

 go, their " loosening silver in the sun Who loves not 

 the glistening river, and the wide, solemn lake, in whose 

 glorious face, all day, but heaven itself seems mirrored, 

 and at night whose bosom throbs with stars like pulses 

 Yet here, in the Aquarium, we have their counterfeit 

 presentment,^' faithfully drawn by nature herself, in her 

 most artistic moments, and finished up to life with all her 

 tintings of romance. Here we may sit face to face with 

 reality, in 



" Silent speech — a converse that affords 

 Surer communion " 



than the babbling of the schools, or the dim picturing 

 even of eloquent books. Here we may still learn some- 

 thing in the simplest act to expand our narrow circle of 

 useful knowledge. Here we may, indeed, find sermons 

 in brooks,'' for every pebble in the AquariUxM is a text, 

 and every leaflet on it a living accordance for study and 



