Essai sur L'Histoire Naturelle des Corallines, et autres Productions Marines du Même Genra, qu'on trouve communement sur les cotes de la Grande Bretagne et d'Irlande; Auquel on a joint Unde Description d'un Grand Polype de Mer, pis auprès du Pole Arctique, par des Pêcheurs de Baleine, pendant l'Eté de 1753. Traduit de l'Anglois. 1756 (La Haye, Chez Pierre de Hondt). 39 copper engraved plates (not

Stafleu, TL2: 1661

REbound in simple strong paper. Cover is browned. Signature on front paper.One plate shows s trong foxing. Else clean copy.

This text is authored by Irish naturalist John Ellis (c.1710-1776), who lived and worked for most of his life in the London cloth trade. As a well-established linen merchant he was able to pursue an interest in natural history, and he became a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1754. Ellis began collecting fossils, seaweeds and zoophytes (corallines) in the 1740s. His attempt to arrange the collection systematically led him to study the corallines in microscopic detail, through which he ascertained that they were animals. While not the first to suggest this, he was decisive in overturning the idea that corallines represented a link between plant and animal life. Ellis used an acquatic microscope designed by John Cuff, which is illustrated on one of the unnumbered plates. Cuff's miscroscope was designed with a moveable lens to facilitate the study of acquatic animals without disturbing them.

Ellis' 1755 work 'An essay towards a natural history of the corallines' contains descriptions and engravings of British zoophytes, including some species from America. Some of the engravings were based on original illustrations by German botanical artist Georg Dionysius Ehret. The plates were engraved by James Kirk, J. Mynde, H. Roberts and A. Walker.