14 
HISTORY OF ZOOPHYTOLOGY. 
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 ct that 
they differed not less from each other, in respect to their form, 
than they did in regard to their texture ; and that, in many of 
them, this texture was such, as seemed to indicate their being 
more of an animal, than vegetable nature.” These “ suspi- 
cions,” 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 ardour, and care, 
and sagacity, that in August of the same year, he had fully 
convinced himself £< that these apparent plants were ramified 
animals, in their proper skins or cases, not locomotive, but fixed 
to shells of oysters, mussels, &c. and to Fucus’s.”*' 
Ellis, however, was not forward to publish his discovery : he 
waited further opportunities to confirm the accuracy of his first 
observations, and to institute other experiments to remove what- 
ever appeared hostile to the doctrine, which at length he fully 
explained to the members of the Royal Society in a paper read 
before them in June 1754: and it was made more generally 
known in the following year by the publication of his <£ Essay 
towards a natural history of the Corallines, and other marine 
productions of the like kind, commonly found on the coasts of 
Great Britain and Ireland ;” — a work so complete and accurate 
that it remains an unscarred monument of his well-earned re- 
* 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- 
ner at Gottingen, who had been in England, and become acquainted with Ellis, 
who calls him an “ excellent botanist,” unhesitatingly claimed Ellis’s discoveries 
for his own, but a more bare-faced literary theft has not been recorded, and its 
detection has rendered the name of the German Professor infamous. — Lin. Cor- 
resp. Vol. i. p. 170 and 179, — For a list of Ellis’s writings the reader may con- 
sult Hall. Bib. Bot ii. 433, and the Introd. to Soland. Zooph, p. viii. 
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