14 HISTORY OF ZOOPHYTOLOGY. 



on paper : and it was this amusement that directed his enquiries 

 into the nature of the latter, for, attracted by their beauty and 

 neatness, he was induced to examine them minutely with the 

 microscope, by the aid of which he immediately perceived " that 

 they differed not less from each other, in respect to their form, 

 than they did in regard to their texture ; and that, in many of 

 them, this texture was such, as seemed to indicate their being 

 more of an animal, than vegetable nature." These " suspi- 

 cions," as he modestly terms them, were communicated to the 

 Royal Society in June 1752; and, encouraged by some of the 

 members, he prosecuted this enquiry with such ardour, and care, 

 and sagacity, that in August of the same year, he had fully 

 convinced himself " that these apparent plants were ramified 

 animals, in their proper skins or cases, not locomotive, but fixed 

 to shells of oysters, mussels, &c. and to Fucus's."* 



Ellis, however, was not forward to pubhsh his discovery : he 

 waited further opportunities to confirm the accuracy of his first 

 observations, and to institute other experiments to remove what- 

 ever appeared hostile to the doctrine, which at length he fully 

 explained to the members of the Royal Society in a paper read 

 before them in June 1754: and it was made more generally 

 known in the following year by the publication of his " 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 ;"— a work so complete and accurate 

 that it remains an unscarred monument of his well-earned re- 

 See the Introduction to his Essay on the Corallines of Great Britain. It 

 is from this work, and from the valuable " Selection of the Correspondence of 

 Liimffius, and other naturalists, from the original manuscripts, by Sir James Ed- 

 ward Smith/' 2 vols, 8vo. Lond. 1821, that I derive my account of Ellis's opi- 



nions. Sir J. E. Smith commences his memoir by saying " John Ellis, F. R. S., 



iUustrious for his discover?/ and complete demonstration of the animal na- 

 ture of Corals and Corallines, was a native of Ireland." We have seen that he 

 has no claim to this discovery, though he himself seems to have thought so, and 

 never makes mention of his predecessors in the same field. A Professor Butt- 

 ner at Gottingen, who had been in England, and become acquainted with Ellis, 

 who calls him an " excellent botanist," unhesitatingly claimed Ellis's discoveries 

 for his own, but a more bare-faced literary theft has not been recorded, and its 

 detection has rendered the name of the German Professor infamous— Lin. Cor- 

 resp. Vol. i. p. 170 and 179,— For a list of Ellis's writings the reader may con- 

 sult Hall. Bib. Bot ii. 433, and the Introd. to Soland. Zooph. p. viii. 



