ance to those who intend to keep marine animals and plants, as my experience and inquiries enable me to furnish and therefore I shall arrange the details in such an order as shall be most easy of reference.
THE ΝΑΜΕ.
A neat, easily pronounced and easily remembered, significant, and expressive term is so advantageous, that it is worth taking some trouble to select the best. For the subject of this volume some have chosen the word Vivarium, and I have myself occasionally used it. The only objection to it is that it lacks distinctness of signification. It literally means any inclosure in which living animals are kept; and the ancients used it to signify a park, a rabbit-warren, and a fish-pond; indeed, I am not sure whether our word "warren," is not "Vivarium" Saxonised. Thus it is quite as applicable to the whole Zoological Garden as to any particular house, yard or tank in it.
To avoid this indefiniteness others have used the term Aqua-vivarium. The objection to this is its awkward length and uncouthness, which render it unsuitable for a popular exhibition or domestic amenity.
I have adopted the word Aquarium, as being free from the objections which lie against the other two, while it possesses the neatness of the former, and the definiteness of the latter. The term had already been in use among the botanists, to designate the tanks in which aquatic plants were reared; and the employment of the same term for our tanks is not forbidden by the character of the service to which they are put, since this is not an alteration, but only an extension.
