HISTORY OF ZOOPHYTOLOGY. 
25 
lypes, 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 similar to that of fuci and 
confervee. 
Were these the deductions of correct observation and expe- 
riment 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 superior knowledge both of marine botany 
and zoophytology, put forth an answer to this attack which is 
remarkable for clear arrangement, and for candid and honour- 
able bearing to his opponent, who had scarcely deserved this at 
his hand. * Having shewn that the presumed 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 confervee ; 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. -f" “ Dr Pallas,” Ellis continues, £< proceeds to 
prove that corallines cannot be animals, as the pores of their 
calcareous substances are too minute for any polypes to harbour 
in. These words of the Doctor’s seem to imply, as if the coral- 
line substances 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 
* 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 cra- 
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. Physiolo- 
gy, p. 48, &c. 
