habits is as healthful and pleasing to
the mind as the consumption of their flesh is wholesome and grateful
to the body. The whole science of Zooelogy has arisen, with its simple
classifications and its vast details. The _vivaria_ of the Jardin des
Plantes rival those of the Colosseum in magnitude, and excel them in
object. Nature is ransacked, explored, and hunted down in every field,
only that she may add to the general knowledge. Museums collect and
arrange all the types of creative wisdom, from the simple cell to man.
Science searches out their extinct species and fossil remains, and tells
their age by Geology. The microscope pursues organic matter down into an
infinity of smallness, proportionately as far as the telescope traces it
upwards in the infinity of illimitable space. Last of all, though not
till long after the earth and the air had been seemingly exhausted,
the desire of knowledge began to push its way into the arcana of the
sea,--that hidden half of Nature, where are to be found those wonders
described by Milton at the Creation,--where, in obedience to the Divine
command,

"Be fruitful, multiply, and in the seas
And lakes and running streams the waters fill, ...
Forthwith the sounds and seas, each creek and bay,
With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals
Of fish, that with their fins and shining scales
Glide under the green wave in sculls that oft
Bank the mid sea: part single or with mate
Graze the sea-weed, their pasture, and through groves
Of coral stray, or sporting with quick glance
Show to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold,
Or in their pearly shells at ease attend
Moist nutriment, or under rocks their food
In jointed armor watch."

But no means were at hand to pursue these unknown creatures to their
unknown residences, and to observe their manners when at home. Single,
withered, and often mutilated specimens of minute fish, mollusks, or
radiata, in the museum, alone illustrated the mysteries of the deep sea.
Fish, to be sure, could be kept for longer or shorter periods in globes
of glass filled with water; but the more delicate creatures inevitably
perished soon after their removal from their mysterious abodes. Such
a passionate desire to "search Nature and know her secrets" finally
originated the idea of the Aquarium.

The term _vivarium_ was used among the ancients to signify many
things,--from the dens of the wild animals which opened under the
Colosseum, to