Although Peron was not the first naturalist to explain that this aspect of floating fire given to the waves was due to the presence of multitudes of living organisms, he was the first naturalist to describe their structure and functional processes.* (* Phipson on Phosphorescence (1862) page 113, mentions that as early as 1749 and 1750, Vianetti and Grixellini, two Venetians, discovered in the waters of the Adriatic quantities of luminous animalculae; and the true cause of the phenomena must have occurred to many of those who witnessed it, though groundless and absurd theories were current. Of the creature discovered and described by Peron, Phipson says that it is "one of the most curious of animals. It belongs to the tribe of Tunicata. Each individual resembles a minute cylinder of glowing phosphorus. Sometimes they are seen adhering together in such prodigious numbers that the ocean appears as if covered with an enormous mass of shining phosphorus or molten lava." Professor Moseley investigated the Pyrosoma while with the Challenger expedition. He wrote: "A giant Pyrosoma was caught by us in the deep-sea trawl. It was like a great sac, with its walls of jelly about an inch in thickness. It was four feet long and ten inches in diameter. When a Pyrosoma is stimulated by having its surface touched, the phosphorescent light breaks out just at the spot stimulated, and then spreads over the surface of the colony to the surrounding animals. I wrote my name with my finger on the surface of the giant Pyrosoma as it lay on deck, and my name came out in a few seconds in letters of fire." The author owes this last reference to an excellent paper on "Phosphorescence in Plants and Animals," by Miss Freda Bage, M.Sc., printed in the Victorian Naturalist, 21 page 100 November 1904.) His treatise on the Pyrosoma atlanticum is an extremely interesting example of his scientific work. The creature is weighed and measured; its appearance is described; then it is carefully taken to pieces and its structure and internal organisation are minutely detailed; next there is an account of its functions, and an explanation of how the phosphorescent appearance is produced; and finally its mode of life, nutrition, and system of generation are dealt with. Peron collects a number of specimens, places them in a vessel filled with sea-water, and observes how, at rhythmic intervals, the creature alternately contracts and dilates in a fashion analogous to the art of breathing among more highly organised animals; and he notices that the phosphorescence appears and disappears with these movements, being most fully displayed when the creature's body is most contracted, and disappearing during the moments of most complete expansion. Here we have careful examination and observation, study of the organism in its native habitat, anatomical dissection, and experiment--a piece of biological work exceedingly well done. Cuvier would have read the piece with satisfaction in his pupil.