ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 503 



Chichester i. is a short nearly oval bacillus which grows readily on 

 the ordinary media. On agar slopes it forms a moist translucent fluo- 

 rescent or opalescent growth. In buth it produces a deposit but no 

 surface scum. On glucose-gelatin shake cultures, the growth is super- 

 ficial without gas production or liquefaction of the medium. From the 

 plates a strong putrefactive odour arises. No indol is produced withiu 

 forty-eight hours. The agar colonies are circular and fluorescent. 



Chichester ii. is a large stout bacillus, single or in short chains, which 

 forms spores freely. It grows rapidly in the ordinary media. On agar 

 slopes the growth is white and opaque ; on potato it is pale yellow and 

 moist; there is both scum and deposit in broth. No gas is formed, and 

 gelatin is slowly liquefied. On agar the colonies are white with 

 irregular margins. 



Chichester iii. is a stout bacillus with rounded ends and forming long 

 chains. On agar slopes the growth is dense, white, and opaque. In 

 broth there is a copious flocculent deposit. No indol or gas is produced, 

 and gelatin is slowly liquefied. On potato the growth is yellow and 

 abundant. On agar plates the colonies are dense and opaque. 



Chichester v. is a thick bacillus with rounded ends which occurs 

 singly or in short chains. It stains fairly uniformly. On agar slopes 

 the growth is white, opaque, and granular. In broth there forms a 

 copious deposit with slight surface pellicle. It does not form gas or 

 indol, and liquefies gelatin slowly. On potato the growth is reddish 

 white. The agar colonies are dense and opaque, with very irregular 

 margins. 



Disease of Coscoroba Swans.* — M. E. Tretrop describes a disease 

 which broke out in January 1900 among the swans in the Zoological 

 Garden at Antwerp. Out of fifty swans half the number succumbed. 

 The chief feature of the disease was diarrhoea, the excrement being 

 yellow or greenish yellow with whitish little lumps, recalling the 

 lienteric stools of sucklings. Though infectious to Coscoroba swans 

 (Coscoroba Candida) and sparrows, other kinds of swans and other birds 

 were unaffected. In the viscera of affected birds a bacterium was con- 

 stantly found. This organism, designated Bacillus Coscoroba, is ovoid, 

 1-5 /x to 2 8 ix long by 1 to 1*4 /x broad. It is easily stained, but not 

 by Gram's method. It grows well on the ordinary media. It is both 

 aerobic and anaerobic, though the cultures are more abundant in presence 

 of oxygen. It coagulates milk, and forms indol. Gelatin is not liquefied. 

 The aerobic cultures exhale a fish-like odour, but there is no smell from 

 the anaerobic. Its optimum temperature is 37° C. Subcutaneous injec- 

 tions of pure cultures into mice, guiuea-pigs, and sparrows, were folio ,ved 

 by death, the bacillus being found in the blood and viscera. The bacillus 

 loses virulence as it ages, and by injecting the attenuated virus into 

 mice, the animals were able eventually to be inoculated with cultures 

 heated for ten minutes to 58° with but slight inconvenience. 



Presence of Bacillus capsulatus aerogenes in the Blood, f — Dr. 

 N. B. Gwyn successfully isolated B. capsulatus aerogenes from the blood 

 during life by means of anaerobic cultures in milk and bouillon. Agar 

 plates and Loeffler's serum were also used. The bacillus was 8-10 //. 

 long and 2 /a broad. It stained well by Gram's method. It only grew 



* Ann. Inst. Pasteur, xiv. (1900) pp. 224-31. 



t Bull. Johns Hopkins Hosp., x. (1899) pp. 134-6. 



