BRITISH ZOOLOGISTS, 93 



in connection with his account of a whale (often referred 

 to as ' Sibbald's whale ' ) which came ashore in November 

 1690, near Burntisland. 



Coming to the eighteenth century, we find many well- 

 known observers devoting themselves, more or less exclu- 

 sively, to the study of British animals. One of the earliest 

 and most considerable of these was John Ellis, whose 

 name will be permanently associated with the study of 

 Corals and of Zoophytes in general. Very little is known 

 of Ellis's life. He is believed to have been born in 

 Ireland about the year 1710, and he died in 1776. He 

 was a merchant in London, and seems, from occasional 

 allusions in his correspondence, to have experienced the 

 ups and downs often associated with a mercantile life. 

 He early showed a strong taste for the study of natural 

 history in general, and of botany in particular, and con- 

 tributed many botanical papers to the Royal Society, 

 of which he was a Fellow. His commercial connec- 

 tion with foreign countries, and particularly with the 

 West Indies, led him to write several memoirs dealing 

 with plants having an economic value, the best known of 

 these being his ' Historical Account of Coffee,' published 

 in 1774. 



Ellis, however, will be always and best remembered 

 as an investigator into the difficult and at that time 

 little understood group of the corals and their allies. 

 Prior to the researches of Ellis, naturalists had mostly 

 held that corals and ' zoophytes ' generally were of a 

 vegetable nature. In fact little doubt was entertained 

 as to the reference of most of these organisms to the 

 vegetable kingdom ; though an alternative view was held 



