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 prassertim Rossias 

 Siberiasque peculiarium. Erlang. 1781. 2 Nos. 



* Ellis thus writes to Linna3us : — " There is now printing, 

 in Holland, a book on Zoophytes, by Dr. Pallas of Berlin, who 

 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- 

 nius, 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 Regne 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. 



