108 ALBEKT C. HUNTER 



and Bad. communior. It is apparent that, just as suggested 

 previously, the bacteria causing decomposition in sabnon are 

 those forms the natural habitat of which is the sea-water from 

 which the salmon are taken. 



The correlation between the flora of the Alaskan canneries 

 and the flora of the sea-water and the salmon is not as clear. Only 

 about 34 per cent of the cultures from the canneries can be traced 

 to another source and this leaves the source of 66 per cent of these 

 cultures vmexplained. There is the same probabiUty existing 

 here, however, that, if the number of sea-water cultures could 

 have been increased the number of cannery organisms correlating 

 with them might also have been increased. From this investiga- 

 tion, the outstanding fact about the bacterial flora of the Alaskan 

 canneries is that it consists mainly of asporogenous, non-ferment- 

 ing bacteria which appear to have very little effect on the decom- 

 position of the salmon. This confirms the statement made in a 

 previous report (Hunter, 1920) that the organisms concerned in 

 the decomposition of salmon are those forms which are brought 

 with the salmon from the sea-water and that the decomposition 

 is not due to bacteria which contaminate the sahnon within the 

 cannery. 



SUMMARY 



In studymg the distribution of the bacteria concerned in the 

 decomposition of salmon, 316 cultures were collected from sea- 

 water, from decomposing salmon and from salmon canneries 

 throughout southeastern Alaska. By checking the duplicates 

 this number was reduced to 85 cultures, one of which was an 

 Actinomyces, one a pink yeast and four white yeasts. Of 

 the remaining 79 cultures 72 were rod-shaped organisms without 

 spores, 3 were spore-forming rods and 4 were streptococci. The 

 morphology and cultural reactions of these 79 cultures are given. 



While no attempt has been made to specifically identify 

 many of the cultures, 6 have been identified as Bad. cloacae, 3 as 

 Bad. aerogenes, 2 as Bad. coli, one as Bad. commxtnior and 4 as 

 Ps. fluorescens. The majority of the bacteria collected apparently 

 belong to a large group of non-fermenting soil and water bac- 

 teria. These bacteria are similar to those mentioned by Jordan 



