Present-day "bacterial nomenclature reserves the genus 

 Bacillus chiefly for the gram-positive, aerobic, spore - 

 forming "bacteria. In reviewing entomologic literature 

 in particular , one repeatedly sees gram-negative, non- 

 spore-forming short rods, and occasionally even cocci 

 referred to "by the generic name " Bacillus . " Similarly, 

 the generic name Bacterium has "been used in referring to 

 spore -forming "bacilli. 



The use of abbreviations, especially by early writers, 

 also has been annoying. In many cases the only reference 

 made to a generic name throughout an entire paper has been 

 a single letter "B. ", not indicating whether Bacterium or 

 Bacillus is meant. Similarly, with the abbreviation 

 "Bac. " which one finds all too frequently, Equally con- 

 fusing is the abbreviation "S. " for Staphylococcus , 

 Streptococcus , Sarcina, Serratia, Salmonella, and Spirillum . 



Although the use of trinomials is being largely dis- 

 couraged by modern taxonomists, early workers even went 

 so far as to use quadrinomials. Such names, given to 

 bacteria remain of little taxonomic value except from an 

 historic viewpoint. 



It is especially unfortunate that the literature con- 

 tains the names of so many microorganisms for which no 

 adequate description has been published. In most instances 

 this is due to the neglect, on the part of the discoverers, 

 to make adequate morphologic, cultural and physiologic 

 studies. It is not enough merely to observe that a micro- 

 organism is a short rod and then to give it a new specific 

 name in the genus Bacterium . If an organism is worthy of 

 a name it certainly should be worthy of an accurate, 

 fairly complete description. Of course, some of the blame 

 for this no doubt lies in the confusion still remaining in 

 present-day bacterial taxonomy. As stated by DeBach and 

 McOmie . "The investigator sometimes does not know which 



^DeBach, P. H. , and McOmie, W. A. Ann. Entomol. Soc. Amer. , 

 1939, 32, 137-1^6. 



of the characters studied is the more important. Often a 

 valuable test is not performed because its importance is 

 not realized, while a number of quite insignificant ob- 

 servations are laboriously made." On the other hand, if 

 the investigator adheres to one or another of the more 

 generally accepted methods of bacterial identification 

 and classification, such as Bergey ' s Manual of Determina - 

 tive Bacteriology , he is not likely to go far wrong. 



