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near, bringing them even from Britain. The oyster eaters were 
not at all ashamed, but rather proud of their capacity. Vitellius 
ate oysters at all hours of the day, and is said to have eaten 1,000 
at a sitting. The temperate Seneca, too, who wrote so very 
beautifully of poverty and yet complains that he could not live 
comfortably upon his beggarly $10,000,000, used to eat a few 
hundred oysters a day. 
If it did not take us out of our way, it would be easy to multiply 
modern instances of extraordinary capacity for oysters, as for ex¬ 
ample, the story told by Brillat Savarin of his guest, who, without 
effort, at one sitting ate 32 dozen oysters. By the Chinese, fish 
have for a long time been kept alive for table use, and they have 
long kept them in artificial tanks for amusement. In the middle 
ages, the monasteries, the abbeys, and even the baronial halls had 
their fish ponds, though more as a matter of necessity than for 
pleasure. The castle moats were often made to serve the purpose 
of fish preserves. The fashionable tastes of those days may seem 
strange to us. The upper classes thought Pike and Tench as fit 
only for the lower orders; but, nevertheless, they thought tooth¬ 
some bits the coarse flesh of the Sea-dog, the Porpoise, and even 
the Whale. A century later the Whale was salted for the use of 
the common people. The food fishes of the masses were the 
Conger, Cuttle-fish and Sturgeon ; while the Turbot and the Sole, 
being very high priced, were reserved for the wealthy. 
The aquarium did not come into use, until the discovery that 
animal life might be maintained by a proper adjustment of vege¬ 
table life in the same tank, so that the one might supply the needs 
of the other. The earliest aquarium on this modern basis is that 
of M. de Moulins, begun in Bordeaux in 1830. About 1S50, 
owing to the researches of Mr. R. Warington and of Mr. Gosse, 
began the rage for small or household marine aquaria. Every 
lady of fashion had in her drawing rooms an aquarium resplendent 
with brass and plate glass, and every school boy had his aquarium, 
humbler in appearance, but equally instructive. Although the 
household aquarium may easily be maintained for beauty or for 
instruction, the rage, like the recent craze for old china and for 
bric-a-brac, did not last long, and was cast aside in favor of some 
new fashion. The first public aquarium in England was opened 
