animals will survive it and some will not.
For the first ten days, deaths will happen.

Dead animals in an aquarium, and dead
portions of sea-weed, must be sought for and
removed as fast as they are found, to prevent
contamination of the water; active sanitary
supervision is, in fact, essential. A bent
pewter spoon fastened to a stick will remove
many things. Living animals never must be
handled. When they have to be moved, they
may be caught and lifted in a muslin net, but
they should not be moved without good
reason. For example, minute creatures
attached almost imperceptibly to shells and
stones, may die, and by their putrefaction
make the water milky. In that case, all the
water must be drawn out of the tank by a
siphon, into a pan or pans, to which the
plants and animals must also be transferred,
the sediment being left untouched; then the
tank must be thoroughly cleaned out, and the
water afterwards poured back in a long thin
stream through a bit of sponge in a glass
funnel. The water will so be purified by
contact with the air. The plants and animals
have then to be restored to their position;
suspicious bits of rock and shell being held
back for a few days in vessels by themselves.

It is to be understood also that the rocks
and stones will become covered, if all prosper
in the little sea, with a green down of
vegetation. This is fine pasture for many of
the marine animals, and a sign that the
establishment will thrive. But then—because
the green confervoid growth which,after a while
spreads like a meadow on the glass, and
prevents its being applied to its use as a window
of observation, is an inconvenient accumulation
that must be got rid of—it is a pasturage
into which a few common periwinkles may
be turned. They will mow it all away, leaving
only the slight marks of their tongues
or scythes (one does not know which word
to prefer), easily removable by a clean rag
tied to the end of a stick.

The watching of these mowers at
their work is one of the pretty sights
that an aquarium supplies to its
possessor. It may be seen with the naked
eye, but the proprietor of a marine menagerie,
however small, will find it worth while to
assist his observations with a pocket magnifying
glass or glasses. Though his shell is
not very handsome, the periwinkle, with his
zebra stripes and netted markings, is a fairly
pretty fellow when he comes out to eat the
succulent young growths of sea-weed on the
sides of the aquarium. It is delightful to
observe the working of the little scythe made
by his silky tongue, which is beset with rows
of teeth that are themselves again, every
tooth, serrated. As the periwinkle eats, his
fleshy lips open, and his glistening tongue
makes a rapid stroke, rasping the green scurf
with its teeth, and, as it works on, leaving
tiny marks, exactly after the pattern of the
marks left upon a grass lawn by the mower.

Among the contents of the marine menagerie
will be included, probably, some of the
small varieties of crab. There is an interesting
little crab found in clefts, and crannies,
and under stones, at the verge of low water—
a Porcelain crab, or Hairy Broadclaw. It
is a crab with some points that suggest the
notion of a lobster,—fringed swimming plates
on the last joint of the belly, large foot-jaws,
and antennae longer than the body. Put this
little fellow into the aquarium, and he flaps
his tail, and swims just enough to enable
himself to get to the bottom slantwise, instead of
going straight down, like a clumsier crab or
a stone. Presto! he has disappeared, and
perhaps no more will be seen of him. He has
found a stone that he likes, and is clinging to
its under-side. It is well, therefore, if one
desires to watch the daily life of a Broadclaw,
to provide him with a flattish stone or two
close to the edge of the glass. He does not
want much space, for he is as flat as if he had
been trodden upon; even his claws are flat
and thin.

Staying at home diligently, this crab takes
in food brought to his door. His antennae are
always feeling about for provender, which he
fishes in with his outer foot-jaws. Each of
these jaws is like a sickle, composed of five
joints, beset with parallel bristles. When the
jaw is straightened, the bristles stand apart
and let the water flow freely between them;
when the joints are bent to a curve, the bristles
overlap, and form a net or hair spoon. This
net is the more perfect because each bristle
itself is feathered with two rows of hair.
After a haul, the Broadclaw picks what he
likes to eat, out of his net, and casts again.
He throws his net out, with the claws
extended, and the meshes consequently open, so
that all rejected particles are washed away;
then he again makes for himself a spoon wherewith
to pick up victuals.

The same crab ought to have, in addition
to his nippers, four pairs of legs; but only
three pairs are, at first sight, visible. The
fourth is a very tiny pair, folded down in a
groove beneath the edges of the shell. Each
of these little legs has, at the end, a
pair of fingers, and a little brush of hairs.
With the two brushes it scrubs and cleanses
its whole body, and with the two pairs of
fingers, each being more properly comparable
to a finger and a thumb, it picks off any dirt
that cannot be removed by brushing.

Perhaps, also, the aquarium may find lodging
for a little creature of the cuttle-fish connexion,
the common Sepiole, a thing no bigger than
one joint of a thumb, which moves by
discharging jets of water from a funnel, and
covers the water plants like a sea-moth.
You cannot tell the colour of the Sepiole, for
it has more power of change than the chameleon.
It is nearly white, with faint brown
specks; they become spots, they become rings,
they become a thick network, and the white
appears in spots. There is a glance of