26 MEMOIR OF PALLAS. 



synonyms of authors to his species, was quite 

 remarkable for an author of twenty-five years of 

 age, and his ' Introduction' was still more so. With 

 regard to corals, he 'pointed out the errors of the 

 prevailing opinion, as if they had been a mere hive 

 so to speak, to the polypes. He demonstrated that 

 their trunk itself is living ; that it is a kind of ani- 

 mal tree, with its branches and heads ; a composite 

 animal, the stony portion of which is nothing more 

 than the common skeleton which grows, as do the 

 animals, but is not fabricated by them. Linnaeus 

 was the first who energetically supported these bold 

 views, which are now adopted by every one." 

 Pallas's ideas concerning true corals excited the 

 attention of our countryman Ellis, who wrote an 

 admirable essay in reply, which silenced, if it did 

 not convince, his able adversary. It is somewhat 

 curious, notwithstanding the advance which has 

 been made in this department,* how truly it might 

 still be remarked concerning these doubtful genera, 

 the sponges and coralines, in the very words of our 

 author, ^' At verum fabricam ertiere, hoc opics^ hie 

 labor est." 



The history of our rising zoologist, not to say 

 Zoology itself, was this same year (1766) distin- 

 guished by another and scarcely less remarkable 

 production of his pen. In this goodly quarto, of 

 more than two hundred pages, adorned with four- 



* See Dr. Johnston's Paper on tlie Nat. Hist, of Britislj 

 Zoophytes, in the Magazine of Zoology and Botany, vol. i. 

 p. 229 i and his History of British Zoophytes, 1838. 



