628 FURTHER REMARKS ON PHOSPHORESCENT BACTERIA, 



cultures ; in the living state the bacilli present, of course, some- 

 what larger proportions). The extremities are rounded off. 

 Cultivated in a suspended drop of nutrient meat-broth on hollow- 

 ground slides, the bacilli exhibit an extremely lively mobility ; 

 they grow abundantly to filaments, which are more or less elongated, 

 and variously wound or curved. 



They are easily and uniformly stained by means of alkaline 

 methylene-blue. 



Their cultures in alkaline nutrient gelatine, a very suitable 

 medium for the cultivation of the micro-organism at ordinary 

 temperatures, cause it to become liquefied. In such a gelatine 

 they yield charactei'istic colonies, which are diflferent from those of 

 Bacillus cijaneo-phosphorescens (I.e. p. 334), and which will be 

 described later on. 



The light emitted by their cultures on gelatine, agar-agar, or 

 boiled fish, in the dark, is of a silvery colour, but weak, and insufli- 

 cient to enable one to read, for instance, the watch. It is the 

 weakest of all the lights given off by the bacteria hitherto 

 obtained. 



This microbe is thus altogether different from Bacillus cyaneo- 

 plios'phorescens (I.e.), * from which it differs also morphologically. 



II. (V). 



The next kind which may be termed Bacillus argeMteo-flios- 

 j)horescens II. f was obtained at the middle of September last, from 

 a piece of a " squid " {Lolvjo sp. ; a small species, used as bait, 

 and occasionally sold at fishmongers' in Sydney ; the specimen 

 under notice was derived from such a source). It was also obtained 

 from pieces of the "Sydney Gar-fish" {Hemirhaniphus intermedius, 



*I will here at once mention that alkaluie nutrient gelatine is also for 

 this kind an excellent nourishing soil, and that, when I said, it grows rather 

 slowly on or in it, I must have at that tiaie used a gelatine which did not 

 distinctly show an alkaline reaction. 



1 1 shall have to add to the name of the luminous bacterium, viz : — 

 Bacillus argenteo-phosphorescetis (I.e., p. 333), the number I. 



