Organisms in Excrement of the Goat, &c. By Br. Maddox. 753 



others, as shown in some other photomicrographs, taken with the 

 same objective, at the same distance from object to screen ; but I 

 have given the measurement of the l0 1 u of an inch at the same 

 distance. 



The examination of the goose excrement, the part not covered 

 with urates, was made by breaking up a portion in freshly distilled 

 water with a clean glass rod, then covering it with a plate of glaf=s, 

 and setting it in the daylight at the ordinary temperature of the 

 room, at the same time as the former experiment. Examined on 

 the slide, chiefly vegetable debris of grass, coarse and fine granular 

 organic and mineral matters, with here and there a bright point, 

 like an ordinary bacillus spore, amongst various bacteria, and a 

 very few short rods were noticed. 



After twenty-four hours, a thin scum appeared in several places 

 on the surface of the fluid, which had now settled into three layers, 

 the heavy solid constituents having sunk to the bottom. The top 

 one was of a dense brown colour, the middle much clearer and less 

 coloured. After another twenty-four hours the top liquid was 

 examined ; being diluted with a droplet of water on the slide, it 

 was seen to contain numerous very bright oval forms, many with 

 outgrowths of varying lengths, evidently germinating spores, ap- 

 parently of the hay-bacillus. These had motion forwards or back- 

 wards ; but not the singular swaying movement from side to side 

 from a fixed point. There were also a few short rods, micrococci, 

 and bacteria present. These were photographed, Fig. 1. On the 

 following day the short rods had notably increased in number, but 

 they did not appear to grow in length; fewer spores in growth 

 were visible. The pellicle on the surface had increased, the part 

 exposed to the air consisting, so far as I could make out, of bacteria 

 mingled with micrococci, whilst immediately beneath, the micrococci 

 formed a layer in a delicate transparent medium. This layer 

 is seen pretty distinctly in Fig. 2. In various parts of the 

 pellicle on the slide, small masses of minute bodies, highly refrac- 

 tive and set in a glcea, larger than the spores of the hay-bacillus, 

 were seen. I believe they belong to a Bacillus of larger dimensions, 

 as I have many times noticed similar bodies in connection with a 

 short chain of stout short rods, in other preparations. Continued 

 examinations for many days revealed nothing further ; the rods had 

 not grown, and the entire fluid was becoming of a greenish colour 

 throughout, but at last upon several slides the bacilli w r ere seen in 

 chains of some length and in nearly all attached to a felted mass of 

 small rods, and rods lying free, but close to the mass, as depicted in 

 Fig. 3. In the filamentary chain, the joints appeared to be 

 passing into the spore condition in a few. The little mass of free 

 rods were motionless and of rather paler appearance than the 

 ordinary rods of hay-bacillus ; the fluid was crowded with infusoria, 



