12 Mr. ellis on the Gorgonia . 
dinary obfervation, that a gentleman in Holland is pof- 
felled of a gorgonia , which has on the fame fhrub, the 
bark partly of a gorgonia verrucofa , and partly of the 
gorgonia coralloides, without any vifible difference of the 
branches ; which he accounts for by comparing it to the 
growth of vegetables, faying: “ So different lichens are 
“ often found incorporated in fucli a manner together, 
“ that they might eafilybe miffaken for one and the fame 
u plant a). But I think it rather paradoxical to fuppofe 
the flefh of one animal to grow on the bones of another. 
If he had examined it attentively, he would have found 
what we have advanced to be the cafe. It is not unufual 
for a gorgonia of one fpecies to grow upon the decayed; 
branches of an individual of another, where the foft or 
flefhy part is already periflied ; but the upper or living' 
gorgonia muff have its own hard as well as foft parts ; for 
fhould there be the fleihy part, and not the bony part, it* 
would belong to the genus of alcyonium , and occahon fuch. 
another remarkable miffake as this author has already 
made in his fertularia gorgonia, fee Elench.Zooph.p. 1 8 8 . 
where he has defcribed an alcyonium , growing upon and 
furrounding the ffem and part of the branches of the 
fertularia j'rutefcens, as a new fpecies of fertularia . 
This, he fays, moff clofely unites the genus of gorgonia 
with that of the fertularia : and to convince me of the 
(b) Quod in eodem frutice corticem partim gorgonia verrucofe partim co- 
ralloides exhibet, line ullovifibili difcriunne ramorum. Verum et diverfae litpc 
lichcnes ita fibi invicein inoliti reperiuntur^ ut pro una facile planta fumerqs. . 
pallas, Elench.Zooph.p. 163. 
trutli 
