Aquatint

“ The first octopus received at the Brighton Aquarium was caught in a lobster-pot at Eastbourne in October 1872, and great was the joy that reigned in “London-by-the-sea.” For in the state of public feeling then existing, an aquarium without an octopus was like a plum-pudding without plums. Share-holders might construct a handsome building, and stock its magnificently gigantic tanks with a variety of most interesting fishes, but fashion and public [8] opinion demanded of them a “devil-fish,” and if they were unable to exhibit one, all other attractions were disregarded. ”

“ When irritated, the creature has the power of attaching the tentacles to the object which annoys it, and in this way it frequently clings to the fingers when handled, and at the same time squirts out numerous jets of water, until it is quite empty and collapsed.
Actinia Parasitica.—This is a good aquarium species, on account of the ease with which it may be kept. It is a species that the rambler on the sea-beach will not be at all likely to meet with, for it is truly pelagic in its habit. ”

“ Spring water will do very well, but must stand a day or two to allow the plants to soften it, before the fishes are put in. My tanks are all filled with spring water, which I find altogether unobjectionable; but for the marine tank I think it preferable to any other in the manufacture of artificial sea-water. Writers on the aquarium usually insist on the use of river water, but in many places this is not attainable, and it is satisfactory to know that artesian, or well water, will serve the purpose admirably. ”

“ Among the fish mentioned by the most experienced in the keeping of Sea Aquaria as best suited to that purpose, the first is the pretty little Tansy, Blennius pholis, with its bright scarlet eyes, and the many changing hues of its body. This little fellow will live and flourish in a tank with a poorer supply of oxygen than any other fish yet tried. ”

“ When the sucker foot idea once got into the two families of living things, Mother Nature seemed to say:
"Now all of you children who can use it, may have this little sucker foot."The oyster and the clam both have a sucker foot. The oyster uses his to fasten himself to something, as the anemone does, and stays there. But the clam uses his foot for travelling. So, the oyster, lying in one position, gets a shell that looks lop-sided, but the clam's shell has both valves alike. People who live by themselves, in one place, get one-sided, too. ”

“ So has the oyster. When the egg hatches the chicken has bones of lime on the inside. When the oyster improved himself into a fish he used the lime of his shell to make inside bones. He already had muscles, a stomach, blood vessels and nerves. But where did he get the idea of a jointed backbone? Where did he get the idea of swimming? Why, all plant and animal life began in the water. Living things were natural born swimmers. The oyster just forgot how. He was a water hermit. The angle or earthworm made ring muscles, and the lobster and crawfish jointed shells. ”

“ French salt sellers thus enjoy the height of protection; they are protected even from their colossal competitor, the sea!'
I do not know a prettier sight than that exhibited by a healthy aquarium on a fine summer's day; the effect of the sunshine upon it being to cause innumerable bubbles of oxygen—that look like balls of quicksilver—to form on every weed, shell, and smallest pebble. On looking through the transparent sides of the vessel, small particles hitherto resting on its base, may be seen slowly arising to the surface of the water, each buoyed up by a miniature gas balloon. ”

“ He appears to have received this impression from Pliny, [13] who writes:—“The head, which is directed obliquely when they swim, is, in the living animal, hard and distended like a balloon.” The cuttle-fishes, and the octopus amongst them, propel themselves rapidly backward, when swimming, by the forcible expulsion from the funnel, in sudden and frequent jets, of the water drawn in at the branchial, or gill openings. Thus the organs of respiration become those of locomotion as well, and the funnel has also another function, being the orifice from which the excreta are expelled. ”

“ At each side of the entrance lay a fish such as they had never seen before. It was flat as a doormat, and seemed to cling fast to the coral floor. Upon its back were quills, like those of a porcupine, all pointed and sharp. From the center of the fish arose a head shaped like a round ball, with a circle of piercing, bead-like eyes set in it. These strange guardians of the entrance might be able to talk and to tell what their numerous eyes saw, yet they remained silent and watchful. Even Aquareine gazed upon them curiously, and she gave a little shudder as she did so. ”

“ The star-fishes, crabs, serpulæ, and the prawns are favourites with aquarian naturalists; but the lovely sea-anemones are the crowning glories of the glass tank. We must carefully remove all dead plants and animals from our aquarium. It is indispensable that there should be a free access of light, but we must not expose our tank to the full glare of the sun's rays, or the water will become heated, and its delicate inhabitants will surely die. These tanks require constant attention, but their beauty will more than repay us for any amount of trouble. ”

“ THE VEGETATION OF THE MARINE AQUARIUM. As the forest must be planted before its denizens can luxuriate in its shades, so the submarine shrubbery of the Aquarium must be perfected before the aquatic animals can be introduced. For it has been shown, in tracing the history of the experiments which resulted in the establishment of the principles that regulate the formation of Aquaria, that it is by plants only that a supply of oxygen can be kept up, sufficient for the health and existence of all forms of animal life beneath the water. ”

“ When we speak of an aquarium, we mean a vessel holding from eight to thirty gallons of water. Mr. Gosse describes his larger tank as being two feet long by eighteen inches wide and eighteen inches deep, and holding some twenty gallons. Smaller and very pretty tanks may be made fifteen inches long by twelve inches wide and twelve deep. Great varieties in form and elegance may be adapted to various situations.
There are two kinds of aquaria, the fresh- and the salt-water: the one fitted for the plants and animals of ponds and rivers; the other for the less known tenants of the sea. ”

“ If a little real sea-water, even a pint or two, can be obtained to mix with the artificial, the ripening of the latter will be considerably hastened, but it is an interesting fact in the chemistry of the aquarium that, though in the first preparation of sea-water certain of the ingredients are left out of the prescription, in process of time those very same ingredients are to be discovered in it by means of analysis. ”

“ In some of the wider and shallower ponds are countless thousands of small mullet, each about three or four inches in length, and swimming closely together in separated but compact battalions. Some, as the sound of a human footstep warns them of danger, rush for safety among the submerged clefts and crevices of their temporary retreat, only to be mercilessly and fatally enveloped by the snaky, viscous tentacles of the ever-lurking octopus, for every hole and pool among the rocks contains one or more of these hideously repulsive creatures. ”

“ Major Newsome has not over-estimated the holding power of an octopus. One in the Brighton Aquarium was seen dragging towards it a huge stone, from 40 lb. to 50 lb. in weight. It is not uncommon for one to haul up to a ledge of rock, four or five feet from the bottom, two or three heavy oysters simultaneously; and it unfortunately happened in the early days of the Institution, and before precautions were taken to avert such accidents, that an octopus drew up, by night, the waste-valve of his tank, and let all the water run out of it ”

“ Into the aquarium no specimens larger than from one to two inches in diameter should be introduced, and even these require to be closely watched, for if afflicted with a fatal illness, I know of no animal whose remains sooner taint the water. Almost before life is extinct, the Urchin throws out a light-coloured nauseous fluid, that speedily poisons the surrounding water, and, of course, causes the destruction of any inhabitants of the tank who may neither have the sense nor opportunity to inhale copious draughts of fresh air. ”

“ In the course of his essay Ingenhauss states, still more directly, that plants “immersed in water,” when exposed to the action of light, emit an air which he announces as oxygen gas; and this idea is the key-stone of the Aquarium.
But, although the discovery of Ingenhauss at once rendered the thing practicable, Aquaria did not then come into fashion. The science of natural history was not at that time sufficiently advanced; for the specimens, even in public museums, were merely heterogeneous collections, assembled without the slightest regard to classification, or any other useful purpose. ”

“ An aquarium, even on the largest scale, and with every appliance that science can suggest, only represents, after all, a few of the conditions which actually exist in nature; but in small vessels, with a limited quantity of water, without the continual motion of the liquid, which belongs naturally to seas and streams, and with circumstances of light and temperature widely different from those which are obtained in nature, it is not surprising that the success of domestic aquaria should be but very partial, and that the taste for them should have declined accordingly. ”

“ A glass syringe to aerate the water occasionally, a camel-hair pencil, an ivory crotchet pin, and a pair of gutta percha forceps, complete the whole machinery of the aquarium, the cost of which is so trifling that the poorest person might manage to procure them.
One great point in favour of an aquarium, and one by no means generally understood is, that having once filled the tank with salt water, it will last for months, and even years, if proper care be taken, without requiring one particle of sea-water to be again added ”

“ If we accept the hypotheses of the microbiologist Ehrenberg—who believes that these underwater depths are lit up by phosphorescent organisms—nature has certainly saved one of her most prodigious sights for residents of the sea, and I could judge for myself from the thousandfold play of the light. On both sides I had windows opening over these unexplored depths. The darkness in the lounge enhanced the brightness outside, and we stared as if this clear glass were the window of an immense aquarium.
The Nautilus seemed to be standing still. ”

“ THE MOLLUSCS, ETC. The curious floral forms of the Zoöphytes have, as yet, attracted the greatest degree of attention among the constructors of marine Aquaria; yet other forms of ocean life offer equal, if not superior, opportunities for curious observation, and are equally well calculated to bear the confinement of the tank. Among them all, none more than the Molluscs, especially the shell-bearing division, which merits the careful attention of the student of Nature, as forming some of her most singular manifestations. ”

“ We shall yet have tropical Aquaria, in which the temperature and qualities of the sea between the tropics will be so successfully imitated, that the glorious shells of those regions will be exhibited in living motion to our greedily-curious gaze; and fish 110gleaming with unusual dyes—metallic azure, and silvery crimson—will dart and glide in our tropic-tempered tanks, as in their own tropic ocean, for our delight and gratification. ”

“ These cuttlefish in the Aquarium were nothing more than the seaside inhabitants of the Mediterranean coast,—poor relations of the gigantic octopus that lighten the black gloom of the oceanic night with their bluish gleam of burned-out planets. But in spite of their relative smallness, they are animated by the same destructive iniquity as the others. They are rabid stomachs that cleanse the waters of all animal life, digesting it in a vacuum of death. Even the bacteria and infusoria appear to flee from the liquid that envelops these ferocious solitudes. ”

“ Among the Sea-Snails of our own coast, which are still eaten by the lower orders, is the Periwinkle, considered by some superior in flavour to the Oyster or Shrimp. This creature, the Littorina littorea, is one of the most useful creatures in an Aquarium, cleansing it from all decaying vegetation, which is its natural food. The Periwinkle varies much both in size and colour, the ground tone of the shell being sometimes red, orange, or even scarlet, sometimes with and sometimes without handsome black bands. ”

“ Between the columns the spaces are open, and from these arcades the currents of water flow with a loud noise, and in great abundance. The apertures on the sides are smaller than the others, and in each of those is placed a dragon spouting water into the spacious magnificent marble basin below. This fountain is furnished with water by the Aqueduct called Aqua Paolo; and it runs from the basin, in a very large stream into several canals, whence it is employed to work various corn, paper, and other mills, as well as to supply fountains and fish-ponds in the gardens and palaces of the opulent. ”