Page:The Book of the Aquarium and Water Cabinet.djvu/15



The Name.&mdash;The term vivarium was first applied to the vessel containing a collection of specimens of aquatic life, and the first vivarium of such a kind, on anything like an extensive scale, was that opened to public exhibition in the Regent’s Park Zoological Gardens. Many naturalists had previously made experiments to ascertain some certain method of preserving aquatic animals in a living and healthy state; and the vivarium, which is the result of those experiments, may be considered as an imitation of the means employed by nature herself in the preservation and perpetuation of the various forms of animal and vegetable life which people the oceans and the streams.

The vivarium is, therefore, no recent or sudden discovery, but a growth of years; and its present perfection is the fruit of many patient investigations, trials, disappointments, and determinations to achieve success.

The term vivarium applies to any collection of animals, to a park of deer, a rabbit warren, a menagerie, or even