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 lately 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 
Linnaeus, and other naturalists, from the original manuscripts, by Sir James Ed- 
ward Smith," 2 vols. 8vo. 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- 
