The Atlas
of the Terrarium

Nothing here has a name we did not give it. The world under the glass keeps its own hours and its own company, and asks nothing of us but attention — which we have tried, in these pages, to pay it in full.

We have sorted our observations into three wings, as one sorts a house into rooms. Each keeps a separate population and a separate weather; each repays a slow visit.

One thing they hold in common: the year. The glass keeps six seasons — ruled not by the sun but by the misting-can and the radiator below — and everything under it lives by that shared calendar; yet each creature keeps its own hours within it, a private round of waking and waning that answers the season in its own way. We have drawn the year as a dial in every wing; turn it, and the guide keeps pace. Choose a wing, and go quietly.