A favorite among all cage-fish, if I may so call the pets of the aquarium, is the gold fish, with its bright golden scales, flashing as it darts about. This fish is of Chinese origin and belongs to the carp family. It is apt to vary, not only in color but in its fins and tail, the fins being sometimes double and the tails at times triple. Some of them change till they look very odd, and have long, wide, lace-like tails, strange but pretty. Some of the gold fish lose their color and grow white and are then known as silver fish.
The common carp is not as handsome as its cousin, the gold fish, and is apt to grow too large for the aquarium. Those who choose to keep it may have it all their lives and leave it to those who follow, for it is said to live from one hundred to two hundred years.
There are many other fish well fitted for the aquarium, such as the gudgeon, the roach, the tench, and the perch. But the perch can be kept only while young and small, as it is a fish eater and has an appetite that will soon leave it few of the other fish for company.
One must not forget the minnow among the dwellers in the glass house. This little, lively fellow is well fitted to live in close quarters and no fish does better in the home fish-pond. It is a pretty little thing, with olive back and silvery belly, which sometimes becomes bright red. After a little time the minnow will grow very bold and tame enough to come to the edge of the tank at the sound of a familiar voice and take its morsel of food from between the thumb and finger.
Among the fish kept in the aquarium must be named the stickleback, the nest-builder of the fish tribe. This little fish resembles the bird in building a nest, laying its eggs in it, and watching them with great care until they are hatched out. The stickleback is a pretty little fellow, but, like the perch, not safe to keep among other small fish, as he has the bad habit of feeding on them, so that he soon has the aquarium to himself.
Dr. Lankaster says of him: "He has all the ways of other fishes and many others besides. Look into your tank; see, there is one larger than the rest; he is clothed in a coat of mail like a knight of old, and it is resplendent with purple and gold. He is a male fish and the king of your little shoal. He has important offices to perform. In the course of a few days, if you watch him and are fortunate, you will see this wonderful little fish engaged, in the most useful manner, in building a nest.
"He seizes hold of one little bit of weed, then of another, and carries them all to some safe corner, till at last his nest is built. Having done this, he gently allures his mate to their new-made home. Here she deposits her eggs, and having done this resigns the care of them to our hero of the purple and gold, who watches over them with an anxiety that no male in creation but the male stickleback seems to know. He fans and freshens the water with his fins, and at last, when the young are hatched, watches over their attempts at swimming with the greatest anxiety."
SNAKE CHARMERS
From the fish let us turn to the snake, a gliding creature without limbs and without joints. It is much like one of the fishes, the eel, in shape, but not in anything else, while no other animal is so much feared and hated by man. We hate this creeping reptile from the fact that a few species of snakes carry a deadly poison in their teeth, and the strongest of men, bitten by one of these, has often only a few minutes to live.
It is this that makes man a bitter foe of the snake and quick to kill any one he sees, whether it has a poisoned tooth or not. He fears it and hates it and has made up his mind that he and the snake are not fit to live together on the same earth.