Page:The Book of the Aquarium and Water Cabinet.djvu/122

110 best for the cabinet, on account of the limited space in which they must be kept, and the elegance they impart to the collection. In the larger jars it would be well to keep some tufts of vallisneria in order to propagate it to supply vacancies in the tanks. When the stock has been housed in the cabinet, whatever is left may be transferred to the bell glass for further examination. It would be better not to wash or disturb the refuse weed and sediment of the collecting jars, but to throw the whole into the vase. After a few hours it will settle down, and a lens will assist in the detection of whatever curiosities may swarm out of the refuse weed. Objects for the compound microscope may in this way be obtained and preserved in plenty.

already indicated some of the varieties best suited for the cabinet, but will here briefly enumerate those which form the leading features of attraction, leaving the development of the collection to the perseverance of the student. The great division of Coleoptera will furnish by far the largest number of showy species, all of them interesting and lively creatures, many of them possessed of great beauty. The ravenous Dytiscus marginalis and dimidiatus, with their strong hooked claws, and brightly bronzed elytra; and the pretty, docile, and harmless Colymbetes, with its shining silver breast-plate, and jet black limbs and elytra, must take the first place among the beetles for beauty of form and colour. The large,