HISTORY OF ZOOPHYTOLOG Y. 
27 
sea side, perhaps for a few days or hours, so that it is unreason- 
able to conclude, because they have been unsuccessful, that 
more accurate observers may not be more fortunate at another 
time.”-— Having thus disposed of an argument which he could 
not distinctly answer, Ellis goes on to notice the fact of the co- 
ralline which had been found on Bergummer heath in Fries- 
land, and which the vagueness of the manner in which the dis- 
covery was announced permitted or warranted him to ascribe to 
accident ; and he then concludes his admirable essay with a 
faithful and minute account of the fructification of the confervse, 
and proves to a demonstration that when Baster and Pallas at- 
tributed a similar fructification to corallines, they had very er- 
roneous ideas of the subject.* 
The discussion rested here, and zoophytes, including the 
sponges and corallines, have been ever since enumerated among 
the subjects of the animal kingdom, although some, among whom 
Spallanzani may be particularized, continued in the belief that 
the corallines and the sponges were vegetables. But naturalists 
continue to be divided in opinion relative to the nature of acknow- 
ledged zoophytes, for many, of whom Bory de St Vincent may be 
considered the chief, f still speak of them as intermediate beings 
partaking of a twofold nature ; while others, under the leading of 
Lamarck, defend their claims to pure animality. No new doctrine 
has been promulgated; neither indeed have the old been defended 
or attacked by any other facts or arguments than those already 
referred to, and with these before me I cannot hesitate to give 
my assent to the opinion of Ellis. No one denies that the 
polypes considered abstractedly from their polypidoms are really 
animals ; — their quick and varied movements, — their great irri- 
* Phil. Trans. Vol. lvii. p. 404, &c. — Pallas appears to have been con- 
vinced by this essay that the Corallines were animal ; and he acknowledged that 
in reference to the land species he had been imposed on — Lin. Corresp. i. 227, 
and 568. Yet it should be remembered that Captains Vancouver and Flinders 
observed on the shores of New Holland, at considerable heights above the level 
of the sea, arborescent calcareous productions which they considered to be corals. 
Peron says they are either corals or vegetables incrusted with calcareous mat- 
ter; and Dr Clarke Abel has proved that they are the latter — Edin. PhihJourn. 
ii. 198. 
f Encyclop. Method, ii, 647. — Cuvier in an early work gave countenance to 
this opinion, but in his Regne Animal, iii, 220, Paris, 1830, it is repudiated. 
