RIVER GARDENS; 
tion, in which plants and snails, the air-givers and 
scavengers, established themselves nnsouglit, and 
the Hampton Court Vivarium assumed, therefore, 
similar conditions to those of a natural pond, and 
cannot, therefore, enter into the category of glass 
Aquaria, such as can he placed upon a drawing-room 
table; nor can its establishment he considered to 
interfere with the credit of the inventors of Aquaria, 
as its success was not the result of the premeditated 
application of a new discovery. 
The successful illustration of the principles ne¬ 
cessary for the artificial cultivation of aquatic plants 
and animals in small vessels, has been so splendidly 
exhibited at the Zoological Gardens of London and 
Dublin, that the taste for imitations upon a smaller 
scale has become quite a mania. A distinguished 
writer on the subject has, in fact, happily quoted a 
passage from Juvenal in illustration of the reigning 
fashion for Vivaria of this kind, which is exceed¬ 
ingly apt, though the Homan satirist referred not 
to little glass tanks, hut to the collections of wild 
beasts which were so much sought after when he 
penned the passage— 
“ Omnes tanquam ad vivaria currant.” 
It only remains, in this portion of my little 
work, to say something practical of the manner of 
14 
