But, although the discovery of Ingenhauss at once rendered the thing practicable, Aquaria did not then come into fashion. The science of natural history was not at that time sufficiently advanced; for the specimens, even in public museums, were merely heterogeneous collections, assembled without the slightest regard to classification, or any other useful purpose. A stuffed cat with nine legs, stood, perhaps, next to a bottled snake, followed by the skin of a crocodile, to be succeeded in turn by a very moth-eaten specimen of a King Charles spaniel, “supposed, upon good authority, to have belonged to Nell Gwynne.” A few scores of such objects, with the addition of an ostrich egg and a few sea-shells, without any attempt at name or description, formed a very respectable museum in those times; and we may, therefore, easily conceive that (in so far as experiments illustrative of natural science were concerned) the suggestions of Ingenhauss remained tolerably dormant. It was not till the year 1833, that Professor Daubeny communicated, to the British Association at Cambridge, a paper concerning some new researches prosecuted in the same direction; and not till 1837, that Mr. Ward became the first to apply the principle to any purpose analogous to that of the Aquarium. In that year he made a report to the British Association, on the hermetically closed glass cases in which he had succeeded in growing many classes of plants, and keeping them in a healthy state without any fresh supply of air. He stated, at the same time, his belief that certain classes of animals would live and thrive under similar circumstances. This was the first direct hint towards the formation of a closed Vivarium, whether atmospheric or aquatic.