Further Experiments, &c. By Dr. B. L. Macldox. 947 



were difficult to be seen iu the unstained state. There were a few 

 large rods common to both, and one had some very small thin 

 motionless rods, scarcely a curved bacillus could be found. The 

 fluid remained tacky for many hours, and was easily dissolved away 

 on washing the covers after staining. All attempts to cultivate 

 the curved baciUi from the excreta of these two insects had failed, 

 the micrococci supplanted everything in a few hours. 



On the 19 th a second experiment was made with a large female 

 blow-fly. Before feeding with any culture, some dejections, passed 

 within an hour after being placed in captivity, furnished a large 

 number of motionless short straight rods, many micrococci, a few 

 conidia, but no curved bacillus. It was now fed from sugar, 

 damped with a recent culture inoculated from agar-agar into a 

 neutral sterilized meat infusion. This contained large numbers of the 

 commas. It fed freely, and twenty-four hours after, in six dejections 

 which were dry, only a few motionless curved bacilli were present. 

 Four hours after placing the culture on the sugar on the 21st, one 

 liquid and three dry dejections were examined, the former alone. 

 It contained a sensible number of curved bacilli, a few motile, the 

 straight rods were rather abundant with an enormous number 

 of micrococci. An inoculation was attempted with this into a ready 

 prepared, sterilized, neutral meat infusion, and kept at 90° F., and 

 further re-inoculated by another liquid dejection passed an hour 

 later, and not examined microscopically. The dry excreta had a 

 few commas, and some minute thin rhomboidal crystals. On the 

 22nd four dejecta were mixed and examined ; upwards of thirty 

 curved bacilU were counted on the stained slide, some with their 

 concavities facing, forming a kind of open circle. The dejections 

 were now unavoidably left over for examination until the 25th. 

 They difi'ered as regards the organisms in no essential particular 

 from the previous days, save that the commas appeared proportion- 

 ally fewer, and the oily-looking granules began to be abundant. On 

 the 25 th there were only four dejections, and these had scarcely a 

 curved bacillus in them. 



The fly was now fed from another four days old culture 

 similar to the last. It fed freely, and three hours after passed 

 a large, pale, slightly dirty-looking liquid dejection. It con- 

 tained much fine debris, a scanty number of curved bacilli, and a 

 few fine straight rods, besides the micrococci. This was used to 

 inoculate a fresh sterilized meat infusion, as the former one had 

 unknowingly been upset and rendered useless. This accident 

 caused much disappointment, as the fly, although active on the 

 wing, could scarcely crawl to the top of the tumbler, possibly 

 getting weak from imperfect nourishment. The freshly inoculated 

 tube was kept at a temperature averaging 90" F. On the 26th 

 the fly, aft<ir again feeding from the freshly inoculated meat infusion, 



