Sometimes when you are in a boat sailing over very calm, clear water, you
may look down and see the fishes darting here and there, and you may even
think that if the boat would but stop you could catch one in your hand; but
the only way in which you can really watch fishes sufficiently to see their
mode of life, is by studying the habits of those which have been caught and
put into glass tanks in an aquarium, where they live and move about just as
birds do in their cages; only the fishes' tank must contain water as well
as air.
Some time ago I went to an aquarium; it was close to the sea, so that there
was no want of water to fill the tanks. At the bottom there was sand, and
there were bits of rock, among which brown and green seaweeds were growing,
in order that the prisoners might forget that they were shut up in a glass
prison-house, and feel as much at home as possible in their captivity.
There they were, big fish and little fish, flat plaice and long
serpent-like eels--fish of all sorts, of all shapes and sizes. There were
other creatures as well as fish; lobsters and crabs and star-fishes; and
the anemones, which "blow flower-like," and have such lovely colours that
they are sometimes called "sea-roses," were waving their bright fringes to
and fro, and catching the shrimps for their dinner with those same soft
fingers of theirs. I should like you to see an aquarium such as this was;
but if you cannot just now, I daresay you may have the chance of watching a
gold-fish in a globe of water, and noticing how it uses its fins to balance
itself and steer its way through the water, and its tail to move itself
along so gracefully and swiftly; how it has two pairs of fins, which serve
for legs and arms, besides three others, the use of which you cannot so
well make out; and how the boat-like shape of the fish helps it to cut its
way so rapidly through the water.
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