periment have proved. At the Southport Aquarium, under Mr. C. L. Jackson, experiments are being conducted which will make us better acquainted with the life-history of another valuable food-fish, the salmon

trout.

Although artificial contrivances for preserving fish alive have undoubtedly been in vogue for many centuries, aquaria, in the sense in which we understand the word, are peculiarly modern. The ancient Romans paid as great attention to their fish-ponds as wealthy gentlemen, of horticultural tastes, now do to their orchid and fern houses. No expense seems to have been spared in making these fish-ponds as large and attractive as possible, or in obtaining valuable and beautiful fish for stocking them. Amongst others, the red mullet (Mullus barbatus?) appears to have been the greatest favourite. It was kept in the ponds for the sake of its beauty, and was usually brought to the table alive, so that the assembled guests could indulge in the pleasure of witnessing the rapidly changing prismatic tints which the fish assumed whilst dying. Not unfrequently canals led from the fish-ponds into the banqueting hall. The red mullet, when it attained a large size, was of great value; one of four pounds and a half fetching a sum equal to 60l. sterling. These mullets are immortalised by the price that was given for them in the reign of Caligula, about 240/. Pliny relates that the fish-pond of one of the Roman patricians (C. Herius) was sold for a sum amounting

to more than 32,000l. So extensive were these ponds, and so well stocked, that the same gossipy naturalist tells us the fish alone from the ponds of Lucullus, the well-known gourmand, fetched a sum as large as that just named! The Romans were capital judges of another modern delicacy, the oyster, the modern demand for which has been run almost as high as it was nearly two thousand years ago. Reservoirs were constructed for the preservation of oysters, and large sums of money were laid out in getting stock and taking proper care of them.

The Chinese have long kept live fish for the table and market. Our well-known gold and silver fish (Cyprinus auratus) come from their country, and were introduced into Europe as ornamental living objects more than two centuries ago. Pepys perhaps refers to these in his 'Diary,' as a "fine rarity; of fishes kept in a glass of water, that will live so for everand finely marked they are, being foreign." Both the Japanese and Chinese have long kept these fish in artificial tanks and glasses for amusement, and have succeeded in roughly training them. During the middle ages, fish-ponds were esteemed a necessary appurtenance to monasteries, abbeys, and even halls. The long abstinence from all animal food, except fish, during Lent, and the many other fasting days imposed by the Church, rendered it necessary that fish of some sort should be easily available for use. The moats which ran round castles or other baronial buildings,

ANTIQUITY OF PIKE.

7

often served the double purpose of defence and fish preserves. In the immediate neighbourhood of abbeys we usually find large fish-ponds, unless (as is frequently the case) these religious buildings stood near some well-known stream. No doubt at this time, in spite of the difficulty of transit, European fish were more or less interchanged, so that it does not do to accept their present geographical distribution as a natural one. It is all but certain that the carp was brought from southern Europe to the more northerly parts; its great size and esteemed flavour rendering it a favourite. The pike is said to have been introduced into England in like manner, but this is hardly likely, as we find its remains in the post-glacial river-bed of Mundesley, in Norfolk. Thus we have incontestable evidence of the existence in Britain of the pike long before the historic period, and when the physical geography of the surface was, in Norfolk at least, very different from what it is now. Tastes, as regards fish and other aquatic animals, have differed much since medieval times. The upper classes regarded pike and tench as fit only for the lower orders, whilst they did not scruple to enjoy the coarse flesh of the sea dog, the porpoise, and even the whale! In an old document of the thirteenth century, about fifty kinds of fish are mentioned which were retailed in the French markets. Lacroix says that a century later, the flesh of the whale was salted down for the use of the common people. Congers,

cuttle-fish, and sturgeon were the principal food-fishes of the masses; whilst turbot, sole, and "John Dory" had even then obtained, by their high price, the aristocratic position of catering only for the stomachs of the wealthy.

The edible frog (Rana esculenta) is another animal which has been specially cared for by those who have learned to like it as an article of food. Tanks or ponds, in which it can pass through its ordinary life-history, and whence it can easily be fished out for the table, still exist in France. Of course we need not here do more than remark that the edible frog is another species than that which is so common in England; although there is no reason in the world why the latter should not be as dainty an article of food, if there were only more of it. Pond frogs were regarded as among their choicest morsels by the ancient Gauls and Franks, in whose country these amphibians have continued to be more or less favourites ever since. Formerly they were served at the best tables, dressed with a green sauce.

Between the artificial contrivances for the preservation of aquatic and other animals designed for the table, and the modern aquaria in which they are kept to administer to the growing love for knowledge, there is as great a gulf fixed as there is between the mind and the stomach. Very little knowledge indeed has been handed down to us from the costly piscina of the ancient Romans, or the more homely fish

ponds of medieval times. From the lofty eminence whence ignorant men looked down, all lowlier creatures seemed beneath their study. It remained for the era when we had learned to regard all things that God has made as worthy of our consideration, to increase our knowledge of their "times and seasons." We can hardly imagine it possible that little more than a century ago the "great Cham" of English literature declared that natural history was a study only fit for children! And we are thankful that we have grown to this to regard the great life-scheme of our planet, past and present, including objects as minute as others are huge, and as structurally simple as others are complex, as one in its nature, evolved through the omniscience of an All-wise Being! If nothing less than Omnipotence could have produced it, surely we cannot but esteem it one of the noblest studies in which the human mind can be engaged. Science is one with the Psalmist in regarding the inorganic and organic kingdoms of nature as doing His will-beasts and all cattle, worms and feathered fowls, mountains and hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, fire and hail, snow and vapour and stormy wind fulfil His word!