THE NEW YORK AQUARIUM JOURNAE. 27 
facts and Fancies about fish, 
FOR OUR YOUNG FOLKS. 
TOLD BY UNCLE OCTOPUS. 
I wonder how many ot my young: friends know 
that two prizes have been offered by their Uncle 
Octopus for the best two compositions on the 
whale. It must not be longer than four hundred 
words or shorter than two hundred, and must be 
thought out and written by a boy or girl who is 
not over ten years old. Already we have two, 
but we want more to choose from, and so will 
wait another week. Hurry up then, and remem¬ 
ber that the first prize is a globe with gold fish, 
and the second a queer book. 
Do you know that your ugly-looking uncle is 
writing a fish story himself, but when he thinks 
it about time to publish it, along comes some¬ 
body with one so much better that he has to 
make room for it. This is the way it has been 
this week and he is not very sorry after all, for 
he has been sitting out on that rock so long that 
he is getting thirsty and means to take a dive 
into the sea, leaving his little nephews and nieces 
to read what his good friend Rev. Alfred Tay¬ 
lor wrote to his children about the Aquarium 
and its wonders. 
Before your uncle goes, however, he wants 
just to tell you that you must not fail to see the 
wonderful Japanese fish that is now at the Aquar¬ 
ium. Such a strange and beautiful creature you 
have never seen before. It came all the way 
from Japan and is so bright and odd that it 
would make a good picture for the outside of a 
tea box, or on the cover of a bunch of fire 
crackers. 
Then there are the beautilul sea anemones, 
which are like the most delicate blossoms ; they 
seem to grow on a stalk and look for all the 
world like flowers growing under water. But 
they are not flowers, but living creatures, and have 
to be fed each day with little pieces of shrimps 
and oysters. When they are tired or sleepy they 
close up like a flower at night and you would 
never think, to see them then, that they could 
open out into such beautiful creatures as they 
are. Some day you shall be told more about 
them, and perhaps one will be given as a prize 
for the best composition about them. 
A PEEP AT THE NEW AQUARIUM. 
BY OUR PAPA. 
Well! If this isn't the queerest lot of crea¬ 
tures on earth ! Big fish and little fish ; crabs, 
lobsters, and eels; sharks, sea-lions and seals; 
trout, sturgeon and whales; fins, shells and 
scales. 
Beasts are hardly any novelty to us. For 
many a year we have seen the waddling hippo¬ 
potamus,’ the long-necked giraffe, and the roar¬ 
ing lion, warranted to be of genuine African 
birth. The sight of these creatures is stale: the 
perfume of them is awful. But here we have 
something new, rare, clean, beautiful. The 
fishes do not sit in sullen captivity, like cased 
lions, nor rove around like Bengal tigers trying 
to escape. But each inhabitant of the tanks, 
with ample room to move about, and with 
abundant supply of constantly-changing water, 
seems to enjoy seeing and being seen. The 
Aquarium is not a mere show. Mr. Coup, and 
the gentlemen with him who have given the pub¬ 
lic this beautiful thing, have spent an immense 
amount of money in providing something which 
will be, all at once, a school of instruction, a 
place of entertainment, and a museum of such 
queer things as we have never vet had an oppor¬ 
tunity of studying. This kind of study is not 
hard work ; this kind of going to school is no 
sorrowful trial. 
Let us first look at the biggest thing in the 
place, the whale. You must not be disappointed 
to find that the whale is not eighty feet long. 
Some whales are as long as that, but they are 
unhandy fellows to manage, and very inconven¬ 
ient to have in the house. This one is what 
they call a white whale, or beluga. He is very 
young ; we cannot find out exactly how young, 
for his parents did not come with him to tell us. 
He is somewhat o ,- er twelve feet long, and weighs 
about as much as a horse. He lives mostly on 
eels. Just now a bushel of eels has been tossed 
into the tank. The tank is about ninety feet in 
circumference, and Mr. Whale swims round and 
round in it nearly all the time. Yesterday half 
a dozen boys tried to race him round the tank. 
He beat the whole party of them. Though he 
is called a “ white whale,” his color is a dirty 
brown, about the color of white lambs which 
have been in the dust and dirt. 
Now that we have seen the biggest, let us look 
at the funniest. Here are three fellows in seal¬ 
skin jackets, and with faces ever so comical. 
They have round heads, elastic noses, and an 
expression like monkeys. They look up at us 
out of their queer little round eyes as if they 
wanted to laugh at their own mischief. Their 
seal-skin jackets fit them admirably, for they have 
worn them since the day they were born. A 
man comes with a dinner-bell, ringing it as he 
comes. That means that the three little seals 
are going to be fed. Up come the erdatures 
from the water, and crowd on the little stone 
platform, like passengers on a Mississippi steam¬ 
boat, rushing for the best seats at the dinner ta¬ 
ble. The seals are just as greedy as the passen¬ 
gers. They take their victuals raw, however, and 
alive, too. The man with the dinner-bell throws 
fish to them, and the people crowd around the 
stone fence of the tank to see the funny little 
fellows fight and tussle for each fish that is thrown. 
The seals have never learned politeness ; though 
one of them, being of a musical turn, has learned 
to grind a barrel organ. 
But we cannot spend all day on seals and 
whales. Here, at one end of the great hall, is 
a tank sixty-five feet long; its front made of 
great panes of plate glass an inch thick, and its 
back and sides of solid brick and stone walls. 
In this great tank are some of the larger fish. 
At eating-house doors the green turtles which are 
to be made into soup are forced to lie on their 
backs, looking so uncomfortable that Mr. Bergh 
has to come along and take pity on them. But 
here is a great green turtle, looking as independ¬ 
ent and happy as if he had never heard of soup. 
He paddles round as if he owned the whole 
tank. Look at the skates, unwieldy, odd-look¬ 
ing, flat things, with faces almost like those of 
human beings, and tails like spikes. Here are 
two different kinds of sharks ; one with a sharp 
nose, while the nose of the other is as blunt as 
a ball. In the corner sits a black-fish who looks 
as if he wanted to play he was dead. You may 
watch him by the hour without seeing him mdve. 
A big lobster walks past him, and claws around 
him, but the black-fish is so dignified and sol¬ 
emn that he is above taking notice of such an 
irregular-looking genius as a lobster. 
What a horrible howl that is from the other 
end of the hall! Who is being put to death ? 
Oh ! it is nothing but the sea-lion expressing his 
views on something or other. There is no music 
in his voice, though he makes an abundance of 
noise. When he speaks out it sounds like a 
mixture of locomotive whistle and bear-growl. 
He lives on raw fish, which he seems to swallow 
without chewing, making great mouths at them 
as they go down. Nobody would want this 
creature for a companion. 
And now for one of the most beautiful things. 
Yonder large tank seems alive with gold-fish. 
The gold-fish is a carp, with bright, orange-red 
scales. The unhappy ones which some people 
keep in small glass globes are objects of pity, 
and ought to be turned loose in the nearest pond. 
But in this great tank, with plenty of water room, 
are over two hundred gold-fish, on dress parade, 
all looking perfectly happy. There is always a 
crowd around the gold-fish tank. 
Close by is one of the most curious fishes ever 
seen, the American angler. It is said that some 
boys, when they go to fish, use their mouths for 
bait-boxes and carry worms in them. Whether 
this is true or not, we know that the American 
angler uses his mouth for a fish basket. Such a 
mouth 1 It is larger in proportion to his body 
than the mouth of any other creature we ever 
saw. It is fringed with something which looks 
like sea weed. When the angler is sitting quietly, 
thinking what he will do for his next meal, he 
looks like an old, flat, mud-covered stone. He 
has a flexible fishing-rod, or tentacle, fastened in 
his back. He uses this to entrap the small fish 
which swim near him. Then he opens his huge 
mouth and scoops them in, keeping them inside 
of his jaws to swallow at his leisure. 
But we cannot stop now to look at all the 
marvelous things in this Aquarium. The En¬ 
glish people have their celebrated Brighton 
Aquarium, but our New York one is better than 
that, or indeed than any in all Europe. We can 
here study every form of life that is kept up un¬ 
der water. We can watch the nimble trout and 
the lazy alligator. We can play with the alliga¬ 
tor’s children, the delightful little pets, as sport¬ 
ive as kittens. We can examine the remarkable 
gymnastics of the crabs and sea-spiders. We can 
learn architecture from the funny little stickle¬ 
back, who builds his nest under the water. We 
can admire the shining scales of the Lafayette 
fish, and the sleek coats of the comical-faced 
catfish, and we can run away from the scowly 
faces which the sea raven, who looks something 
like a toad, makes at us. 
We are beginning to make the acquaintance 
of some fish which we have not been in the habit 
of seeing, except in the frying pan or on the 
gridiron. We are glad that so many intelligent 
people are coming to see and study for them¬ 
selves. This Aquarium is not ro be looked on 
as an ordinary show. It is the people’s college 
of fishery ; and we will make the most of what 
we can learn from it. 
Farewell for to-day, alligators, trout, whales, 
shad, shrimps, dog-fish, catfish, and all you - 
other sorts of fish. We will see you again.— The 
Advance. 
