58 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
career gave little promise of his subsequent pro- 
ficiency; for he rashly and ignorantly entered the 
lists against the celebrated Ellis, and maintained 
that corallines were plants! * Pallas was engaged by 
the court of Petersburgh for many years: he travelled 
1778. 1 vol. 4to. — Icones Insectorum presertim Rossize 
Siberizque peculiarium. Erlang. 1781. 2 Nos. 
* Ellis thus writes to Linnzus: — “ There is now printing, 
in Holland, a book on Zoophytes, by Dr. Pallas of Berlin, whe 
was two years in England. ‘This gentleman, I find, has 
treated both you and me with a freedom unbecoming so young 
a man. I find Pallas has used me with so much ill-nature, 
because I exposed the absurdities of (his friend) Baster’s doc- 
trines and experiments, in our Phil. Trans.” (Linn. Corr. i. 
p- 186.) Again: —“ Dr. Pallas, in his article of Corallines 
(vide Pallas, Zoophytes, p. 418.), depending on Count Mar- 
sigli’s chemical analysis of them, considers them as vegetables. 
But if we observe how Pallas has confounded the calcareous 
crust of corallines with the farinaceous covering of vegetables, 
. it will be no longer a matter of surprise: for had he put the 
true corallines into an acid menstrum, and the Fucus pavo- 
ntus, which he calls Corallina pavonia (Pall. Zoophy. 419.), 
and the Lichen fruticulosus, which he calls Corallina terrestris 
(vide p. 427.), he would have found that the true corallines 
would ferment strongly, while the Fucus and Lichen would 
not be in the least affected.” (Linn. Corr. i. p. 198.) The 
high praise bestowed upon Pallas in the Régne Animal, and 
the slight notice taken of Ellis in the same work, is the occa- 
sion of this note. That Pallas published a great deal more 
than Ellis, is very true, because the one was by profession. a 
naturalist, in the service of Russia; while the other held a high 
and responsible appointment under government, and could only 
pursue natural history at his leisure. But talents are not to be 
esteemed in this way: and the subsequent confession, by Pallas 
himself, of his errors (Linn. Corr. i. p, 227.), places the re- 
lative powers of these observers in their true light. 
