€opy of the Prefdent Sir John Piungxe's Speech, November 30, 1768, 

 on delivering Sir Godfrey Copley's Prize Medal to John Ellis, 

 Efq. F. R. S. for his Papers on Natural Hi/lory read to the Royal 

 Society in I 767. 



MR. ELLIS, 



OU have obliged the Public in general, and this Society in- 

 particular, Sir, with fo many judicious experiments, and accu- 

 rate drawings ; fo many acute reafonings, and ingenious obferva^ 

 tions ; and fo many valuable improvements in natural knowledge, 

 that it has been difficult to determine which of them are beft intitled 

 to thofe marks of approbation which the will of the late Sir Godfrey 

 Copley has directed and enabled us to confer by an honorary diftinc- 

 tion — In public acknowledgment of the merit and confequential 

 encouragement of the profecution of fuch laudable ftudiesv 



You have opened fuch a wonderful view of fome of the moll: 

 extraordinary productions of nature, and have purfued your difcove- 

 ries with fo much fagacity and judgment, that you might have rea- 

 fon to expect many of thefe tefHmonies of your fuccefsful labours 

 in Natural Hiftory, if it were cuftomary to repeat them. 



But as it has only been ufual for the Council to Angle out fome- 

 one or two in particular, I am directed by them to deliver this Medal 

 to you,, as an exprefs teftimony of their approbation of your excellent 

 papers of the year 1767, on the animal, nature of the genus of 

 Zoophytes, called Corallina, and the A&inia Sociata, or Cluflered Animal 

 Flower, lately found on the fea-coafts of the new-ceded iflands, now 

 published in the Tran fact ions for the year 1767. 



It would be impertinent in me, Sir, to pretend to expatiate on the 

 t nature 



