CLASSIFICATION OF DAIRY BACTERIA. 93 
But most of them are worse than useless at the present time, 
for no one would be able to identify the bacteria from these 
meagre descriptions or even to tell whether the bacteria des- 
cribed belong to one or another group of bacteria. Ina few 
cases this is possible, and where we have been able to do so we 
have associated thése forms with some of the groups that we 
have described more in detail below. But the value of the 
descriptions in earlier literature varies with the completeness 
of the description, and the descriptions of a majority of these 
earlier described bacteria are so meagre that they are absolutely 
worthless. When, therefore, a type of bacterium has been 
named from characters which will apply to a score or more 
different types there is nothing to do but neglect it entirely. 
Not even its name can be retained if the type cannot be recog- 
nized. We have therefore, left out of our list large numbers 
of these types upon the ground that they must hereafter be 
absolutely omitted from descriptions because of the impossi- 
bility of determining what they are. We have tried to include 
in our list all bacteria that have been sufficiently described to 
render their recognition fairly sure, but, of course, there may 
be some omissions. 
In our recent work we have tried to include in our technical 
routine of description all of the characteristics usually adopted 
for the general description of bacteria. We have, however, not 
adopted the practice of determining the formation of indol or the 
reduction of nitrates. The reasons for this omission have been 
that the data in question have not seemed to us to have much 
significance in relation of dairy problems with which we have 
been particularly concerned. Since these data have not been 
determined in the laboratory routine they have, of course, not 
been included in the following descriptions. It will be noticed 
that with some of the forms described by us the description is 
not complete. This is especially true of some of the earlier de- 
scriptions of types which have not been found in abundance 
and have not reappeared in our later work. Many of our 
earlier described species, however, though incompletely de- 
scribed at the time, associate themselves so closely with the 
forms more recently studied that they are merged in groups, 
which we now recognize and of which we give a more complete 
description. A few forms, however, are still left with nothing 
