Shirley Hibberd

“ But an aquarium is not a mere cabinet of specimens; it is a water garden in which we cultivate choice plants, and it is also in some sort a menagerie, in which we see living creatures of kinds hitherto the least studied by naturalists, displaying to our close gaze their natural forms, and colours, and instincts, and economy, as freely and as happily as if they were still hidden from us in their native depths. ”

“ My favourite Prussian carp, that love me as I love them, that come when I call them, that hurry to the side when I fillip the glass with my finger-nail, that watch me with all their eyes when I sit in the room with them, and that feed from my hand as a dog would, show at the tips of their pretty tails the sanguinary signs of gasterostean vengeance. ”

“ Actinia Dianthus.—This is the Plumose anemone of Mr. Grosse, and sometimes bears the very appropriate name of the Carnation anemone. It is the most superb of our native Actinias—a gorgeous creature, that in itself more than realizes our brightest imaginings of the hidden splendours of the ocean floor, and of the gems that bedeck the caves of Neptune. How will future poetry be affected by the revelations of the aquarium, and how far will the sober facts of scientific research influence the pictures and the incidents of romance? ”

“ I tell my friend that I love the pretty creatures as much as he does, yet, as I write for everybody who wishes to keep an aquarium, I feel bound to consider how it is to be managed without them, if their absence is desired. I confess too, that I do object to their appearance in some cases myself, as I do also to beetles, and all other insects in a tank fitted up for the adornment of a drawing-room, however necessary they may be in the tank of a student. ”

“ There the little Lymnea and Planorbis are developed in hundreds, without molestation; and if increase of Paludina vivipara be required, a jar is at once converted into a breeding tank by throwing a couple into it, with a bunch of Callitriche, and any vegetable waste from the tanks. In the aquarium, the young mollusks are devoured almost as soon as they are born; and the pleasing spectacle of their increase, coming forth from the gelatinous mass in hundreds, like minute beads of gold, is lost without the aid of the cabinet in which to rear them. ”

“ An hour spent in dragging a brook or pond, will do more towards stocking a cabinet with wonders than a hundred purchases. To the pleasure of an excursion is added the intellectual profit of learning the nature of the haunts, and many of the habits of the creatures obtained; every haul of the net will bring forth from the oozy bottom, an immense variety of the most curious kinds of life. ”

“ If you step carefully to the edge of a pond or river, where this crow-foot covers the shore-water with its floating foliage and thousands of snow-flakes, you will not be in a hurry to disturb it, it is so truly beautiful. ”

“ Placed in the jars they appear at first sight like newly hatched fry of fishes, but we soon detect the segments of their pellucid bodies, and, as might be expected in water larva, they breathe at the wrong end, and hence most of their merry movements are performed between the surface and the bottom; every time they descend they carry with them a minute bubble from the surface. Under a good lens the pretty creature changes its form considerably, and comes out in the pantomime style, with huge horns, goggle eyes, and starched frills of shaggy hair ”

“ Yet in by far the greater number there is a distinct faculty of progression—the anemone, by a slow, gliding motion, gradually removes itself, and climbs up the sides of the vessel, or takes possession of a tuft of weed, or shifts from one stone to another, or fairly leaves go of its anchorage, and floats like a balloon upon the surface. Thus low in the scale as they are, they possess will, and a power of obeying it; they have their organs of locomotion, of attack, and defence ”

“ The Fly just emerging. 2. The Fly nearly free, and forming an arch. 3. The Fly
liberated, and with its body bent, to hasten the drying of the wings.
expand within, and to knock at the door of its sepulchre, the pupa quits the watery element for ever, and betakes itself to the dry land, or to the slip of cork placed in the jar for its use. There, the apparently painful process of its unfolding takes place, and the fly slowly emerges. The envelope bursts asunder, and the head of the lovely, but blood-thirsty damsel, emerges to the light. ”

“ Rockwork claims the first consideration when we proceed to fit up and furnish a tank. For a fresh-water aquarium, I do not recommend rockwork of any kind; and in the case of a vase, rockwork is positively dangerous, from its weight, and, unless very skilfully managed, will be ugly rather than ornamental. In the marine tank a few pieces of rock add to the beauty of the scene and the comfort of the creatures. ”

“ An aquarium without minnows is no aquarium at all—it is a makeshift. With a shoal of minnows and a few Prussian Carp an aquarium may be considered fairly stocked, because there is really something to look at, something to amuse, and something to instruct. The minnow is a bold and impudent fish; he is at his ease in less than an hour, and in a week will show a sign of attachment and familiarity. They do not live beyond three years, but will reach that age in the confinement of a tank. ”

“ We see them mounting a stem or leaf with great gravity, when suddenly up goes the tail, the legs hold tight, and the case turns completely over, as if on the first of May, Jack-in-the-green were to dance on his head. When the creature is hidden, and the case sways to and fro like a buoy attached by too short a rope, the sight is very curious. ”

“ Hence, in a vessel containing water plants in a state of healthy growth, the plants exhale more oxygen than they absorb, and thus replace that which the fishes require for maintaining healthy respiration. Any one who will observe the healthy plants in an aquarium, when the sun shines through the tank, will see the leaves studded with bright beads, some of them sending up continuous streams of minute bubbles. These beads and bubbles are pure oxygen, which the plants distil from the water itself, in order to obtain its hydrogen, and from carbonic acid, in order to obtain its carbon. ”

“ Gyrinus takes its name from the tendency most of the beetles of the tribe have to move in circles, and this particular species exemplifies the habit of the tribe in a very striking manner. It is a very sociable beetle, always found in company with others of its kindred, forming little communities, which pass their time in whirling and spinning upon the surface of still pools, like congregations of dancing dervishes. They are as shy as they are nimble, and it requires some dexterity to net them, for they dive and scatter on the approach of a foot-step ”

“ The Philosophy of the Aquarium must be clearly understood by those who purpose to cultivate it. It is a self-supporting, self-renovating collection, in which the various influences of animal and vegetable life balance each other, and maintain without the vessel a correspondence of action which preserves the whole. A mere globe of fish is not an aquarium in the sense here indicated ”

“ This time she clutches at the pupa case with a convulsive grasp, and drags forth the whole of her delicate body from the grave, and there remains motionless, still clinging to it, as if contemplating the baseness of her origin—for beauty is ever the offspring of the dust. ”

“ It must be understood that where real sea water can be easily obtained, as at spots near the coast, it is undoubtedly the best, though, in some respects, the artificial preparation is preferable, because less liable to certain eccentric changes of constitution, which will fall under our attention further on. Sea-water contains the spores of plants, and the germs of many forms of animal life which may have development in the tank, and when these births occur, it is a special gratification to the possessor. ”

“ The central disk of the sea flower is composed of the lips, which open into a mouth which communicates with the simple sac which constitutes the stomach, and the petals and fringes which surround it—now like the anemone, now like the sunflower or the mesembryanthemum, or the richest carnation that ever won for a florist a golden prize. ”

“ Then, with an uneasy fidgetting, he flounders up again, and off he goes, as graceful as before, his pectoral fins spread out like samples of lace, looking as much like an eel with frills as it it possible to conceive. When ascending, his motion is so undulatory that he may easily be mistaken for a smooth newt, going up for a bubble. ”

“ Next appear the legs, not in action, but gathered up to the breast, as if in spasm, and, for a time, the effort is suspended, and the helpless, half-formed beauty hangs back her head, as if languid with the exhaustion of pain. ”

“ Another point deserving, of note is, that marine aquaria need a less depth of water than river collections:—For purposes of study, a number of glass dishes or milk-pans, will be found preferable to any kind of tank, or vase, especially for Zoophytes, though fishes and crustaceans require more room than mere bowls would afford them. In fact, the lower forms of marine life may be kept for many months without the help of sea weeds, if placed in shallow vessels—the absorption of oxygen, at the surface, being quite equal to their demand upon the water. ”

“ Here are the lovely sea-flowers—flowers only in name and appearance—representing the lowest links of animal life and pointing to that last link where the animal and the vegetable blend into one, bearing all the outward resemblances to flowers from which they take their appropriate names, yet all of them strictly animals, endowed with volition, and in their general organization assimilating to the extensive series of zoological orders which stand above and beneath them. The sea anemones are animals of the lowest class—zoophytes of the great Cuverian division of Radiata. ”

“ The larva of the dragon fly exhibits, in a very striking manner, the mode of respiration in aquatic insects. It is not an active creature; for though it has six legs, it seldom uses these except in the capture of prey; its locomotion is chiefly performed by the tail in the action of breathing. When thrown into a jar with some fragments of weed and a few light chips, these will be seen to be drawn towards the tail of the creature, by the current occasioned by the absorption of water ”

“ It necessitates frequent changing of the water for at least a fortnight after the first stocking of the tank, in order to get rid of the soluble vegetable matter, which the water dissolves out of it, and its presence promotes the growth of confervæ, and other low forms of aquatic vegetation, that become obnoxious to the sight, and even hurtful to the health of the collection. I now use sand and pebbles only, and I find that aquatic plants of all kinds root freely and flourish in it, and, indeed, if pebbles only be used, they flourish just as well if their roots are covered. ”