40 
THE FRESH-WATER AQUARIUM. 
cabinet aquarium, which will be noticed hereafter. An affair of 
this sort enables one to have a large collection of plants, changing 
the light or temperature as the case requires. 
Before giving the names of a few of our native plants which 
are favorites in the aquarium, it may be well to s&y a few words 
as to the locality in which most are found, for to one who takes 
a real interest in the aquarium, it will not suffice to pick out a few 
plants here and there from the collections of dealers in specimens, 
which by the way are not numerous. Half of the pleasure, to say 
nothing of the profit in having an aquarium, is in hunting for one’s 
own specimens, and in realizing that there is much more life in the 
waters of a pond than we before imagined. To those who pass 
some time during the year in the country, there will be ample 
means for collecting specimens in the ponds near by ; but to resi¬ 
dents of cities the task will not be so easjq although it will de¬ 
pend a good deal upon the facilities for getting into the country. 
Take for example the two cities of Boston and Worcester. A 
ride of fifteen minutes in the steam cars will take one from the 
former place to Fresh Pond, in Cambridge, which is rich in aqua- 
rial specimens. The brooks in the marshes, near what is called 
the “ Glacialis,” abound in larvae, fresh-water snails, and the 
smaller specimens, while Fresh Pond itself contains nearly all 
our common water plants. Tritons, or fresh-water newts, are not 
to be found there, but not so with small turtles, which at certain 
seasons of the year, especially in the fall, are quite common. 
There is, I believe, no place eqnally near Boston, which has so 
complete a collection of aquarial specimens as Fresh Pond. Wor¬ 
cester offers great advantages to the collector in its beautiful Long 
Pond, or, as it is recently called, Lake Quinsigamond. The pond 
itself has few plants on account of its depth, but if we follow it 
up to the river which helps to form it, and then to the other pond 
above, near the place where a few years ago the old mill house 
stood, we shall find all the specimens we could wish for. In this 
upper pond the plants, instead of growing with the various kinds, 
mingling recklessly together as usual, are found in a general way, 
with each kind in a large patch by itself as if some one had planted 
them so, making as it were an aquatic botanical garden. We may 
go in the opposite direction down the pond, a few miles below the 
bridge which crosses it, until we come to the dam which separates 
Long from what is called Half-moon Pond. If it is midsummer, 
