78 Natural History of British Zoophytes. 
There was something in this hypothesis peculiarly captivating to 
an imaginative mind, and few poets have possessed a richer fancy 
than Linnaeus. He seems to have ever fondly cherished the opin- 
ion, for in his curious Diary, in which he has enumerated with much 
complacency all his works and merits, it is mentioned as one of his 
principal recommendations to the respect of posterity. " Linne," 
he says, " decided that they (zoophytes) were between vegetables 
and animals : vegetables with respect to their stems, and animals 
with respect to their florescence. This idea is still entertained." * 
Before we notice the manner of its reception by Ellis, we may take 
a short review of the writings of some other of the opponents of the 
latter naturalist. 
Ellis had indeed effected a revolution in the opinions of scentific 
men, but there were some even of considerable reputation who 
either wavered between the old and new, or continued to hold the 
notions of their fathers, t which, however, very few ventured to 
maintain publicly. Of these the only one who merits our parti- 
cular notice is Dr Job Baster of Zurichsee in Zealand, who seems 
to have been very imperfectly qualified for the task he had under- 
taken. At first he boldly asserted the vegetability of all zoophytes, 
attempted to prove that the Sertulariae were really articulated Con- 
fervae, and that the little animals observed on them were merely 
parasites, which had as little to do with the formation of the object 
they rested on, as the maggots in a mushroom had to do with its 
moonlight growth. These the results of his actual observation were 
set forth in a tone of arrogance calculated to wound the feelings and 
good fame of Ellis, nor is this conduct to be wondered at, for igno- 
rance is usually as unfeeling as she is proverbially confident in her 
assertions, and the Dutch naturalist was truly very ignorant of all 
relating to the subject he attempted to elucidate. Unskilled in 
marine botany he actually mistook the objects of the enquiry, and 
instead of Sertulariae set himself to examine true Confervae, a fact 
which the drawings illustrative of his paper demonstrate. His fur- 
ther experiments made him fully aware of this ridiculous error; and 
having become better acquainted with his subject, he appears to 
have been puzzled what to make of zoophytes ; they were certain- 
ly not sea- weeds, and it were too humiliating to adopt a once re- 
jected theory, when happily the Systema Naturae came to his aid, 
* Pulteney's General view of the Writings of Linnaeus, by Dr Maton, p. 560. 
Lond. 1805. 
f Count Ginanni was one of these, and had the hardihood to question the ac- 
curacy and observations of even Jussieu. See Hall. Bib. Bot. ii. 444. 
