134 RELATIONSHIPS OF THE COCCACE^ 



his species of micrococci have since been recognized as 

 really short rods, — B. prodigiosus, for example. 



The recorded description of Ascococcus, however, was 

 that of a spherical coccus; and an undoubted coccus-form 

 was soon described and referred to this genus. This was 

 the organism which multiplies in saccharose solutions, form- 

 ing a zooglcea resembling frog spawn, the gelatinous masses 

 growing, under favorable conditions, to the size of a man's 

 head. Cienkowski (1878) first studied this organism 

 carefully and gave it the name Ascococcus mes enter oides. 

 Van Tieghem (1878), a little later, worked on the same 

 form and substituted for Ascococcus the generic name 

 Leuconostoc, in order to emphasize the resemblance 

 between the zooglcea-forming coccus and the blue-green 

 alga, Nostoc. 



Both of these names have been set aside by Migula 

 and most recent bacteriologists, on the ground that the 

 production of gelatinous growth masses was a character 

 too unimportant to deserve generic rank; and Asc. mesen- 

 teroides has generally been placed with Streptococcus or 

 Micrococcus. It is certainly true that the property of 

 zooglcea formation is specially developed in certain types 

 among many genera of the Coccaceae. In Diplococcus 

 we have considered a mucus-forming type; in Albococcus 

 we shall find another; and a capsule-bearing form has been 

 described even among the sarcinae. At the same time the 

 biology of this particular form, Asc. mesenter oides, seemed 

 so unique that we were led in our previous revision 



