ZOOPHYTES. 
6 05 
friend; and the drawings, together with an account of 
this excursion, were presented to the Royal Society. 
On several parts of the corallines he noticed little 
bodies, which, through the microscope, appeared 
to be so many vesicles or bladders. “ To the use 
of these,” says Mr. Ellis, “ 1 was altogether a 
stranger till this journey : but now I discovered 
that they were matrices , or habitations of young 
polypes, which are produced here and there on the 
sides of the parent, as in the fresh-water polype ; 
only in the marine ones they are protected with 
this vesicular covering. These vesicles appearing at 
a certain season of the year, according to the differ- 
ent species of corallines, and then falling off, like 
the blossoms or seeds of plants, have made some 
curious persons, who have not had an opportunity of 
seeing the animals alive in the vesicles, conclude 
them to be the seed-vessels of plants ; and into this 
mistake I was led myself, in the account laid be- 
fore the Royal Society in 1752. In which account 
I had taken some pains to point out the great 
similitude between the vesicles, and denticulated 
appearance of some of these corallines ; and the 
tooth-shaped leaves and seed-vessels of some species 
of land-mosses, particularly of the hypnum and 
bryum.” 
In this manner did the indefatigable Mr. Ellis 
clearly prove the nature of these marine substances, 
and open the way for those who were yet doubtful, 
to satisfy themselves of the truth of what he ad- 
vanced. 
