It is not in the herbarium, not in drawings, not when dried and shrivelled, and black and contorted, that we can see the beauty of sea-weeds; such are no more than the bleared and withered mummies of Egyptian men to the fresh vigour of youth: it is while free and waving in the waters that we must search for the best elucidations of their habits and gracefulness. Years ago Ray wrote in his earnest and noble manner:--“Let us then consider the works of God, and observe the operations of his hands. Let us take notice of, and admire, his infinite wisdom and goodness in the formation of them: no creature in this sublunary world is capable of so doing besides man, and yet we are deficient herein: we content ourselves with the knowledge of the tongues, or a little skill in philology, or history perhaps, and antiquity, and neglect that which to me seems more material--I mean natural history, and the works of creation. I do not discommend or derogate from those other studies; I should betray mine own ignorance and weakness should I do so: I only wish that _this_ might be brought into fashion among us. I wish men would be so equal and civil as not to disparage, deride, and villify those studies which themselves skill not of, or are not conversant in; no knowledge can be more pleasant than this, none that doth so satisfie and feed the soul, in comparison whereto that of words and phrases seem to me insipid and jejune.” How he would have rejoiced at the popular movement introduced by Mr. Mitchell at the Zoological Gardens, and since so powerfully backed up by other colossal vivaria of the day; the aquaria at the Crystal Palace, Brighton, Ramsgate, and other places; and what results would he not have predicted when, in walking through the mammontainted streets of our great metropolis, he passed dozens of shops for the sale of aquaria, vivaria, glass jars, siphons, prawns, mussels, anemones, efts, and sticklebacks! All these and many more living things cannot be kept and nourished, watched and fed, without the spread of that knowledge which is known, and the acquirement of a vast deal that is new. Naturalists will no longer be able to write books on things they have never seen; and hasty jumpings to conclusions, and closet speculations, will be rarer as the chance of detection becomes the greater, and the spirit in which all true men of science do labour, and ever have done, is the more rightly appreciated. The Merry Monarch’s little spaniel has its collar of red morocco, with its silver plate, and the imprisoned songster of a warmer clime is confined in a pretty cage. The love of natural history is not the cherished taste of the poor--it is not bounded by the circumscribed limits of the middle ranks, who find in a glass jar of living objects from the pond or sea a refreshing pastime from the heavy cares of daily bread, and a cooling relief from toil, or the feverish anxieties of money-making; but the love of natural history lives no less in high places and delicate minds, whose susceptibilities have been heightened by every kind of culture, gaze with delight on the glittering armour of the scaly fish, and watch with interest the actions, motions, and habits of the thousand instructive objects to be collected at any time in a single tide. How charming to give a little elegance to the transparent homes to which we consign our new-made pets! We no longer confine ourselves to cheap glass and zinc fountains. White marble and bronze have brought our favourites into the boudoir and the drawing-room. Look at the festoons of fuci on the rugged rocks: have not worse things been chiselled and cast? and at that tall bundle of crisp _Laminaria Phyllitis_, as it stands erect in the transparent water. How charmingly a crystal vase would rest upon its slightly diverging crests, like the abacus on the leaves of a Corinthian pillar! how delicate the slight frillings of the margins of its translucent fronds!