[ 5°4 ] 
LXIV. A Letter to Mr . Peter Collinfon, 
F. R. S. concerning a particular fpecies of 
Coralline. By Mr. John Ellis, F. R. S. 
Read Febr. 
* 754 - 
■'A : 
S I R, 
Mong the obfervations I have lately 
made on the marine productions, I 
find, that many corallines, as well as corals, are com- 
pofed of a great number of tubes, which proceed 
from animals j and as thefe tubes are made of dif- 
ferent materials in different fpecies, fo are they dif- 
pofed in variety of different forms. Some are united 
clofely and compadly together, as in the red coral, 
fee Plate YdV II. letter A ; and in fome fpecies of the 
white, as at letter B ; in both of which they appear, 
combined together, forming irregular ramifications, 
like trees : Others rife in tufts, like groupes of the tu- 
bular ftalks of plants, diflinCl from one another. Two 
forts of thefe the fifhermen frequently take up at fea 
in their nets, particularly near the Buoy of the Nore, 
at the opening of the river Thames. When thefe 
are firft taken out of the fea, and immediately put into 
a bafon of fea water, you may obferve, that each tube 
has its proper polype, fitting on it, of a mofl beautiful 
crimfon colour. Letter £), in *Plate XVII. gives tis 
the figure of the largeft kind, called, in Ray's Synopjis , 
Ed. 3. p. 31. Adi anti aurei minimi facie plant a ma- 
rina ; and letter C is a fmaller kind, called, in Ray's 
Synopfis, Ed. 3. p. 39. Fucus Dealenfis fjhilojus ta- 
rings Jimilis. 
To 
