dear to every boy's heart. And aquariums are not
impossible in a city house. Fortunately they can be just as well taken
care of in the city as in the country. A medium-sized aquarium which
will hold quite a lot of stuff can be bought for $1.50 or $1.75. This
must be filled with gravel or sand to the depth of four inches. In the
sand must be, securely fastened, some water-grasses, which are for sale
at any of the stores where fish are to be bought. The boys who succeed
best with their aquariums are those who study the matter pretty
thoroughly before they begin, and read up the scientific books of
natural history. The simpler works of this sort contain any amount of
practical information which any boy can apply to his own use.

A porous stone seems to be necessary in the middle of the aquarium. As
for the placing of the water plants, they must be left to the boy's own
taste and judgment. Indeed, the arrangement of the whole aquarium must
be left to the boy who owns it. In this place I must stop and say that
it is foolish for any boy to consult many of his playmates as to how the
thing should be arranged, for when he has asked and received much
advice, he will find that most of it is directly opposed to what he
already knew, and besides is so varied as to be nearly useless. A glass
tube for removing the manure from the sand must be kept beside the
aquarium, if the scavengers, such as pollywogs and snails, fail to do
their duty in cleaning up.

An extremely pretty aquarium has lately been fitted up by a boy about
eleven years old. It is not a very large one, and stands on a small
table near the window of his room--too near, it may be said, for the sun
these summer days having unusual power has caused the untimely death of
two many-tailed Japanese gold-fish and four extremely graceful little
silver-fish. With the exception of this mortality, the death rate has
been quite low. The original occupants of the aquarium before these
recent deaths consisted of two pair of Japanese gold-fish, two pair of
silver-fish, two pollywogs--one small one, who worked busily all day
trying to do his share of the work in keeping the place clean, and one
big fat pollywog, who sadly neglected his duty and spent his time trying
to turn into a frog as quickly as he possibly could. Six snails, who
were put in the aquarium to keep the glass clean, worked hard and
satisfactorily in accomplishing their mission (in the beginning one
snail was at first