164 RELATIONSHIPS OF THE COCCACE^E 



mannite and the glucosides, but does form acid in sacchar- 

 ose, lactose, raffinose, and inulin, and generally clots milk. 



All these species are of course type centers only. 

 Variants "by suppression or addition" of certain characters, 

 as Andrewes and Horder express it, are found in each 

 group. They describe a considerable number of such 

 variants. The concentration of strains about the seven 

 combinations of characters to which they have given 

 names seems, however, to mark them off distinctly as the 

 principal centers about which the members of the genus are 

 varying. They appear to deserve specific rank, in the only 

 sense in which the term " species " can be applied among 

 the bacteria. 



It is somewhat unfortunate that these authors did not 

 conform to the accepted custom of biological nomenclature, 

 and adopt for their types the names by which similar 

 organisms have previously been described, even if the 

 earlier accounts were incomplete. They acknowledge, 

 for example, that their third type was first described as 

 Str. erysipelatos by Fehleisen, but prefer Rosenbach's 

 name, Str. pyogenes, on account of its wider use. One 

 of their short-chained forms should have kept the name 

 Str. brevis of von Lingelsheim, and another might well 

 have been identified with Str. mitior of Schottmiiller. 

 Andrewes and Horder, however, preferred to give new 

 names to their types; and since they have done so their 

 names must stand, as they, for the first time, have 

 described streptococcal types with sufficient clearness 



