226 Natural History of British Zoophytes. 
tain a volatile salt or animal oil ; the pores observable in their cal- 
careous portion are too small to be the habitations of polypes, and 
similar pores can be detected on fuci ; no polypes nor any visible 
token of life could be discovered by Jussieu in any coralline, a species 
of which, moreover, a Mr Meese had found growing upon a heath 
in Friesland ; and lastly, the fructification of corallines is very si- 
milar to that of fuci and confervse. 
Were these the deductions of correct observation and experiment " 
they would unquestionably have been conclusive, but some of them 
were already known to be contrary to the fact, and the others were 
weakened with doubts and uncertainties. Ellis, conscious of his su- 
perior knowledge both of marine botany and zoophytology, put forth 
an answer to this attack which is remarkable for clear arrangement, 
and for candid and honourable bearing to his opponent, who had 
scarcely deserved this at his hand.* Having shewn that the pre- 
sumed coralline which Pallas had compared to a fucus or sea-weed, 
was in fact a fucus, Ellis proceeded to prove how widely different 
every coralline was in structure and texture from any confervae ; 
and that the former, contrary to Pallas's assertion, not only gave out 
when burned " an offensive smell like that of burnt bones or hair," 
but afforded also on careful analysis both volatile alkali and em- 
pyreumatic oil.t " Doctor Pallas," Ellis continues, " proceeds to 
prove that corallines cannot be animals, as the pores of their cal- 
careous substances are too minute for any polypes to harbour in. 
These words of the Doctor's seem to imply, as if the coralline sub- 
stances were only habitations for detached polypes, and not part of 
the animals themselves. How this affair stands, I hope to have 
clearly demonstrated long before this, for I have plainly seen, and 
endeavoured to shew mankind, that the softer and harder parts of 
zoophytes are so closely connected with one another, that they can- 
not separately exist, and therefore have not hesitated to call them 
constituent parts of the same body, and that the polype-like suckers 
are so many mouths belonging thereto. 
* It appears from the Lin. Corresp. Vol. i. p. 186, that Pallas had written 
disrespectfully of Ellis. In his Elen. Zoophytorum the latter, however, is pro- 
fusely complimented : " Ellisium subtilitate atque acumine observationum om- 
nes super eminentem," Praef. p. x. is praise enough surely, but its sincerity 
might be questionable. 
f This character, as Lamouroux remarks, is insufficient, seeing that the major 
part of marine plants give out, in burning, odours and products analogous to those 
of animals. Cor. Flex. p. 12. It is now well known that chemistry affords us, 
in its minute analyses, no test between animal and vegetable matter See Prout's 
Bridgewater Treat, p. 415, and more particularly Tiedemann's Comp. Physiology, 
p. 48, &c. 
