20 
THE NEW YORK AQUARIUM JOURNAL. 
■W. S. "W"-A-IFLID, fEfoLltojC. 
NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 8, 1876. 
The Aquarium Journal will be published semi¬ 
monthly at the Nezu York Aquarium, corner of %^th 
Street and Broadway, New York Citv. 
Though intended for distribution among the 
patrons of the Aquarium, the Journal will also be 
forwarded for one year, by mail, or delivered by 
carriers to any address oti receipt of one dollar, which 
sum is a mere nominal one, since it includes postal 
charge and expense of mailing and deliver v. 
All communications should be addressed to W. 
C. CO UP, corner 3 5 th Street & Broadway. 
OUR EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT. 
We have postponed until the present issue 
of The Journal any extended reference to the 
free scientific and educational department of 
the New York Aquarium, in order that our 
readers might be first informed regarding the 
Aquarium proper. Taking it for granted that 
the public are at last familiar with the main 
pavilion, and have begun to make the ac- 
qu air. tan eg of the creatures ThelYcTispIafiS’df 
we take a peculiar pleasure in directing their 
attention to this novel and important adjunct. 
In the early stages of the movement the 
Manager, Mr. Coup, put himself in communi¬ 
cation with Mr. Ward —now a member of 
his working staff—who had been active in 
urging upon our countryman the need of such 
an institution. The result of that conference 
was the establishment of this free Scientific 
and Educational Department. The architect 
was instructed to so make his plans that they 
should include suitable apartments to be 
used as a library, reading-room, and natural¬ 
ist s laboratory. In the equipment of these 
several rooms no expense was spared. The 
library, which occupies a most commanding 
place, was furnished with a collection of valu¬ 
able books on Natural History, a full list of 
scientific periodicals, and fitted with a speak¬ 
er s platform for the benefit of lecturers and 
teachers. This library is open and free to the 
use of all who desire to avail themselves of 
the privileges there offered. ‘While it is nat¬ 
urally expected that those who desire to study 
and read the works here placed at their com¬ 
mand will also find that in the Aquarium to 
engage their attention, yet the library is 
separate from the main pavilion, approached 
by a special entrance, and hence in every 
sense is free. 
Not only are those interested in science— 
especially Natural History—welcome to these 
apartments, but the rooms are also at the 
command of any organized scientific body 
which may desire them for regular or special 
meetings, and will be granted for this pur¬ 
pose free of charge. 
Adjoining the library is a large room de¬ 
signed for a laboratory and naturalist’s work¬ 
shop. Here are tables for dissecting pur¬ 
poses; experimental tanks for special observa¬ 
tions, and all the needed appliances for the 
securing of plaster casts. These too, let it be 
clearly understood, are placed at the disposal 
of all students who may desire to use them, 
and no charge is made or any compensation 
of whatever nature expected. If the question 
should arise as to the motive which prompted 
this generous recognition of the claims of 
science, we answer decidedly and with au¬ 
thority, that it was determined to make the 
Aquarium a positive agent for profit to the 
people, and that the desire to effect this 
prompted so generous an allotment of space 
and appropriation of money. 
Any reader, who has also been a visitor at 
the Aquarium, need not be told that the insti¬ 
tution is a legitimate enterprise, dependent 
for its success upon just and worthy claims ; 
although hardly a month old the tanks are 
yet the most attractive and interesting of any 
in the world, and it will be evident, also, that 
the interest which the study of these wonders 
is likely to excite will be greatly enhanced by 
an increased knowledge as to their structure 
and habits. It is for the purpose of extending 
this knowledge that the Scientific Department 
was founded. 
The management of this special depart- 
one who is familiar with the needs of students, 
and in thorough sympathy with the manager 
in his desire to serve, not only the patrons 
of the Aquarium, but all those who desire to 
extend their acquaintance with Nature by the 
study of her works. In choosing thus to give 
editorial endorsement to those special efforts, 
it is done that the public may be specially and 
authoritatively informed regarding the high 
and sole purpose of the Aquarium free li¬ 
brary, reading-room and laboratory; and in 
extending a cordial invitation to all students 
to avail themselves of the privileges here ac¬ 
corded them, it is in the confident hope 
that their presence will add to the credit and 
worth of the Aquarium, and what is still 
better will advance the cause of true science 
in one of its most important departments. 
SCIENCE AT THE AQUARIUM. 
The evening of October 30th was one of 
unusual interest at the Aquarium. At that time 
there was assembled in the library and read¬ 
ing room, that distinguished body of sa¬ 
vants, the New York Academy of Sciences. 
In response to a request from the manager 
of the Aquarium, the members of The Acad¬ 
emy met to listen to two papers, the one 
by the Chairman, Prof. E. C. H. Day, of 
the Biological Section, the other by Mr. Erecl. 
Mather. The subject of Professor Day’s re¬ 
marks was “ Thoughts on Evolution and 
the speaker left no one in doubt as to his de¬ 
voted adherence to the theory which has for 
some time past engaged the attention of many 
students of science. Professor Day’s address 
was followed, and in an informal manner re¬ 
viewed, by Professor Newberry, President of 
the Academy, who was in turn equally em¬ 
phatic in his opposition to certain of the so- 
called scientific deductions made by Darwin 
and his followers. At the close of Professor 
Newberry’s remarks, Mr. Mather read an in¬ 
teresting and instructive paper relating to 
Fish Culture, its history and the result of his 
efforts at the Aquarium, from which com¬ 
munication we quote somewhat at length, as 
follows : 
MR. MATHER’S ADDRESS. 
The Chinese are credited with having prac¬ 
ticed Fish culture for centuries, and it was the 
fashion a few years ago to claim great superiority 
for them in the art, for the reason that they had 
practiced it so long a time. 
This comes from travelers, who, noticing fish 
culture for the first time in a foreign land, and 
knowing nothing of what had been done in this 
direction in their own country, brought exagger¬ 
ated reports of the proficiency of the Celestials, 
which later investigations seem to prove without 
much foundation. 
Naturally wishing to know in what they ex¬ 
celled, I made inquiries as to their modes, and 
found that all they ever did was to place bundles 
of fagots or straw where the carp and kindred 
fish whose spawn was glutinous, would deposit 
their eggs, and when full would raise them trom 
the water and transport them a short distance to 
other waters. This, and an absurd story about 
placing the ova in the shell of a hen’s egg and 
hatching it under a hen, is all that I have been 
Chinese. It is, moreover, demonstrated that 
no country on the globe has made such progress 
in fish culture as America, nor are there any fish 
culturists that understand their business better. 
A proof of this is now to be seen in this 
Aquarium. Here are eggs of the salmon, taken 
by Mr. Stone, of the United States Fish Com¬ 
mission, in the mountains of California, packed 
in moss in such a perfect manner as to bear 
three days’ jolting over rough mountain roads to 
Sacramento, whence they were sent by express 
to New York, and a more perfect and healthy 
lot of eggs it has rarely been my good fortune 
to see. As you will observe, they are nearly all 
hatched, and are strong and lively. 
Some years ago I packed the eggs of the 
brook trout and sent them safely to England. 
That art has improved upon nature in hatch¬ 
ing fish, is easily seen by a comparison of the 
methods of both. We will take, for instance, 
the trout. In nature the fish pair off and seek 
a gravel bed in a spring stream, where they oc¬ 
cupy several days in making a suitable nest. 
This is done by the female, who whips it clean 
with her tail, and, when free from sediment and 
of a proper depth, presses her abdomen in the 
cavity and thus emits her eggs. The male, who 
all this time has been at her side, immediately 
discharges his milt, and the eggs are covered 
with gravel and left to their fate. As this oc¬ 
curs in water from six inches to two feet in 
depth, there are many eggs that are not reached 
by the milt, and consequently remain unpreg- 
nated. Then, as it requires from fifty to eighty 
days, according to the temperature, to hatch 
them, they are subjected to all sorts of mishaps ; 
another pair of fish may choose the same spot 
and whip them all out to be devoured by the 
smaller fish ; a freshet may cover them with mud 
and smother them ; ducks, eels, and cray fish 
will dig them out, or a few dead ones may de¬ 
velop a fungoid growth that will envelop them all 
in the mantle of death. And even when hatched, 
the young fish is so weighted down by its great 
vuuuukucso. «v,hc 
able to learn of the Boasted superiority' o! in 
