Crustacea and Actiniae may be kept and
transmitted long distances packed in layers of moist sea-weed.

For all this detail, labor, and patient care, we may reasonably find
two great objects: first, the cultivation and advancement of natural
science; second, the purest delight and healthiest amusement.

In the aquarium we have a most convenient field for the study of
Natural History: to learn the varieties, nature, names, habits, and
peculiarities of those endless forms of animated existence which dwell
in the hidden depths of the sea, and at the same time to improve our
minds by cultivating our powers of observation.

The pleasure derived from the aquarium comes from the excitement of
finding and collecting specimens, as well as from watching the tank
itself. There can be no more pleasant accompaniment to the sea-side walk
of the casual visitor or summer resident of a watering-place, than to
search for marine plants and animals among the fissures, rocks, and
tide-pools of the sea-washed beach or cape.

Nature is always as varied as beautiful. Thousands of strange forms
sport under the shadow of the brown, waving sea-weeds, or among the
delicate scarlet fronds of the dulse, which is found growing in the
little ponds that the inequalities of the beach have retained. It is
down among the great boulders which the Atlantic piles upon our coast,
that we may find endless varieties of life to fill the aquarium, though
not those more gorgeous hues which distinguish the tenants of the coral
reefs on tropical shores. Yet even here Nature is absolutely infinite;
and we shall find ourselves, day after day, imitating that botanist who,
walking through the same path for a month, found always a new plant
which had escaped his notice before. So, too, in exploring the open sea,
besides the pleasure of sailing along a variegated coast, with sun and
blue water, we have the constant excitement of unexpected discovery:
for, as often as we pull up the dredge, some new wonder is revealed.

Words fail to describe the wonders of the sea. And all that we drag
from the bottom, all that we admire in the aquarium, are but a few
disconnected specimens of that infinite whole which makes up their home.

So, too, in watching the aquarium itself, we shall see endless
repetitions of those "sea-changes" which Shakspeare sang. Ancient
mythology typified the changing wonders of aquatic Nature, as well
as the fickleness of the treacherous sea, in those s