17 



a footnote to Grotenfeldt's article on B. lactis erythro- 

 genes (69) (1889), mentioning a bacillus isolated from earth by 

 Scholl, and studied in the laboratory of Hueppe at Wiesbaden. 

 The bacillus formed red felt-like colonies on gelatin, causing li- 

 quefaction. The gelatin had a red pellicle, but was not colored 

 throughout. Agar cultures were red in the dark. It grew quickly 

 at room temperature, and was morphologically like the anthrax 

 bacillus. 



Ei sen berg (70), Kruse(3), and Migula(71) repeat this 

 description, the latter two authors adding only data as to solution and 

 spectrum analysis of the pigment as determined by Schneider (19). 

 Mace" (9 p. |256) mentions the organism. These are the only 

 descriptions that I have found. 



My cultures, I and II, were identical in all reactions tested. 

 Morphologically B. mycoides roseus is usually smaller than 

 the anthrax bacillus, but like it variable in size, rodlets from 

 2 10 ju long occurring in the same culture. In very old agar 

 cultures, short, thick, often coccuslike, non-motile, no spores. Ge- 

 latin colonies are characteristic. They appear in three days as 

 minute white dots, under low power showing an opaque center and 

 edges broken or fringed as though crystallized; later the edges 

 lose their fringing and become smooth. In ten days the colonies 

 are 35 mm in diameter, somewhat creased and corrugated ; they 

 form slight depressions in the gelatin, but do not actually liquefy 

 it. Gelatin stab culture develops slowly a slight needle growth and a 

 dry, thick, corrugated pink colony on the surface. The needle growth 

 is often finely arborescent, like that of the colorless B. mycoides 

 figured by Lehmann and Neumann (7). Agar colonies appear 

 in 48 hours; under low power they show the characteristic fringed 

 edges seen in gelatin colonies. At five days they are pink and 

 small to the eye, less than 1 mm in diameter, edges smooth and 

 granular. Agar slant cultures show little development before 

 48 hours or three days. Then a salmon pink growth is seen, which 

 becomes dull, dry, and wrinkled, deepening in color as it gets 

 older, finally becoming vermilion. Potato, growth very slow, no 

 development for three or four days; at the end of ten days small 

 orange dots, or if the potato is kept wet, an elevated, warty, moist, 

 salmon pink growth. In 25 days a thick raised layer is seen, 

 which is more orange in color than on agar. Bouillon, slow de- 

 velopment, no turbidity. On the third day small round pink co- 

 lonies appear at the surface; at the end of ten days the surface 

 is covered with a thick agglomeration of salmon pink colonies, 

 some of which sink to the bottom as sediment. Milk, at the end 

 of ten days, shows only the characteristic salmon pink colonies 

 floating on the surface; after 20 days, decidedly alkaline. No gas, 

 no growth in the closed arm; growth and pigment nearly as good 

 at 37 C as at room temperature; nitrates reduced to nitrites. 



B. mycoides corallinus (n. sp.). 



This organism was isolated from Mississippi River water in 



2 



