72 Natural History of British Zoophytes. 



measure prepared for the change on the very eve of being effected by 

 the labours and assiduity of a member of that very society which 

 had latelv listened, with apparent approbation, to the reveries of Dr 

 Parsons. 



John Ellis — the name of the individual alluded to — was a mer- 

 chant in London, who devoted his leisure to the study of natural his- 

 tory, in which he attained so considerable knowledge as to gain easy 

 access to the Royal Society, and the acquaintance and correspond- 

 ence of the most celebrated naturalists of his time. He seems to 

 have attached himself more particularly to the economical depart- 

 ment of botany, and seized every opportunity to introduce foreign 

 plants to our gardens, especially such as were remarkable from fur- 

 nishing any material employed in the arts and manufactures ; and he 

 was equally solicitous to acquire and diffuse accurate information re- 

 lative to any natural productions which might be rendered subser- 

 vient to the necessities or comforts of mankind. He was fond also 

 of amusing himself in making imitations of landscapes by the curi- 

 ous and skilful disposition of delicate sea-weed and corallines 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 re- 

 gard to their texture ; and that, in many of them, this texture was 

 such, as seemed to indicate their being more of an animal, than vege- 

 table nature." These " suspicions," 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 ar- 

 dour, and care, and sagacity, that in August of the same year, he 

 had fully convinced himself " that these apparent plants were rami- 

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

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



conformity to the previous acquisitions, and is disliked and condemned if incom- 

 patible with them." — Turner, Sac. Hist, of the World, vol. ii. p. 19. 



* 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 

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

 ward Smith," 2 vols. 8vq. 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., 

 illustrious for his discovery 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- 



