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The keeping of fish in confined or artificial environments is a practice with deep roots in history. Ancient Sumerians were known to keep wild-caught fish in ponds, before preparing them for meals. In China, selective breeding of carp into today’s popular koi and goldfish is believed to have begun over 2,000 years ago. Many other cultures also have a history of keeping fish for both functional and decorative purposes.
The concept of an aquarium, designed for the observation of fish in an enclosed, transparent tank to be kept indoors, emerged more recently. However, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact date of this development. In 1665 the diarist Samuel Pepys recorded seeing in London "a fine rarity, of fishes kept in a glass of water, that will live so forever, and finely marked they are, being foreign". The fish observed by Pepys were likely to have been the paradisefish, Macropodus opercularis , a familiar garden fish in Canton, China, where the East India CompanyThe British East India Company popularly known as John Company was founded by a Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600. Over the next 250 years, it became one of the most powerful commercial enterprises of its time. The British East India was trading. In the 18th century17th century 18th century 19th century more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701- 1800; however, historians will sometimes specifically refer to the 18th Century as 1715- 89,, the biologistBiology studies the variety of life clockwise from top-left E. coli tree fern, gazelle, Goliath beetle Biology is the science of life. It is concerned with the characteristics and behaviors of organisms, how species and individuals come into existence, an Abraham TrembleyAbraham Trembley ( September 3, 1710 May 12, 1784) was a Swiss naturalist. He is best known for his studies of freshwater hydra. Trembley Trembley Trembley. kept hydraHydra may stand for: a simple fresh-water animal of the class Hydrozoa. See Hydra (biology). a constellation. See Hydra (constellation). Sometimes Hydra is confused with the constellation Hydrus. in Greek mythology, a many-headed serpent which Heracles de found in the garden canals of the Bentinck residence 'Sorgvliet' in the NetherlandsDutch redirects here. For other uses, see Dutch (disambiguation). The Netherlands ( Dutch: Nederland is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, a constitutional monarchy. It is located in northwestern Europe and borders the North Sea, Belgium, in large cylindrical glass vessels for study. The concept of keeping aquatic life in glass containers, then, dates to at latest this period.