The President's Address. By Wm. Carruthers. 115 



is preserved in the Botanical Department of the British Museum, 

 and among them the original draft of Linnaeus's families of plants, 

 drawn by Ehret, and lettered by Linnaeus. This was executed when 

 Linnaeus was living in the house of his patron Clifford, at Hartekamp, 

 where Ehret went to make his acquaintance, and remained to make 

 drawings for the Hortus Cliffortianus. 



At Brighton they found a Coralline with all its minute capillary 

 branches expanded, what we now call Antennularia ramosa. furthei 

 specimens of the Laomedea, and the Polyzoan, Flustra foliacea. 

 These he examined in salt water in a watch-glass under his Micro- 

 scope, and, in addition to the animals, he noticed little vesicles or 

 bladders (egg-vesicles of to-day) which were till then supposed to be 

 the seed-vessels of the plant, but which he concluded were the habi- 

 tations of young polyps. 



In August of the same year he took a journey to the northern 

 shore of Kent, and had as his companion Prof. Oeder, of Copenhagen, 

 the original author of the Ieones Florse Danicse, the first volume of 

 which was published in 1751, and part after part has been issued 

 since, and yet the work is still unfinished. At Whitstable he got 

 some of the fishermen to collect the animals they found in their 

 fishing nets, and to place them at once in water. He found here for 

 the first time Alcyonium ramoso-diyitatum, &c, of Kay's Synopsis, 

 the large fleshy compound zoophyte which we still call Alcyonium 

 digitatum. The specimens, brought in buckets of sea- water, gradu- 

 ally expanded, and when the polyps were fully out, he took them 

 quickly from the water and plunged them into brandy, and thus 

 secured many of the expanded animals for further examination. 



The study of the materials obtained in these excursions led to the 

 publication of Ellis's famous memoir, entitled ' An Essay towards a 

 Natural History of the Corallines, and other Marine Productions of 

 the like kind, commonly found on the Coasts of Great Britain and 

 Ireland.' London, 1755. In the copy presented to the Royal 

 Society by the author he inscribes in his own handwriting the more 

 definite date, " March 6, 1755. " The work has as its frontispiece an 

 engraving of one of his " Landscapes." It consists of 103 pages of 

 letterpress and 38 plates, to which is added an engiaving of " Mr. 

 Cuff's Aquatic Microscope, used in the Discoveries made in thir 

 Essay." The only aquatic element in the instrument is the stage, 

 which supported a watch-glass in which the objects could be examined 

 in water. Besides giving accurate figures of many species of marine 

 animals, Ellis settled the animal nature of many objects which had 

 been up to his time referred to the vegetable kingdom, and he 

 separated the Hydrozoa from the Polyzoa. He arranged the animals 

 described in the following classes : — 1. Vesiculated Corallines ; 2. Tu- 

 bular Corallines ; 3. Celhferous Corallines ; 4. Articulated Coral- 

 lines; 5. Keratophyta; 6. Eschara ; 7. English Corals; 8. Sponges; 

 9. Alcyonia; and 10. Other marine substances. The Vesiculated 



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