CONDITIONS FAVOURING FERMENTATION. 



55 



two or three days, the fluid itself still remaining perfectly clear. 

 These are not tufts of some fungus, as might be thought from 

 their appearance, but are tangled masses of long Bacilli-fllaments*. 

 (c) In other cases the fluid itself may remain clear, and no tufts 

 may show themselves ; but slowly, and after many days, more or 

 less of a flocculent sediment accumulates at the bottom of the 

 vessel in which organisms are to be found. This latter kind of 

 change has not been much considered in this paper f; it is one 

 which has only shown itself on a few occasions, and is, moreover, 

 one which, judging from my previous experience, is more apt to 



Fig. 7. 



1 . Urine Bacillus. «, a. Short, medium length, and long filaments, h h. Fi- 

 laments bearing spores, c, c. Small fragments of such filaments. 



2. Small TorulcB from hay-infusion. 



3. Vibrio Rugula from hay-infusion. 



4. Micrococci in the figure-of-8 form and as short chains, from milk and from 

 hay-infusions. 



* Sometimes they have more the appearance of what Prof. Cohn describes as 

 Vihrio serpens (Beit, zur Biolog. der Pflanz. Bd. i. Heft. 2, Taf. iii. fig. 18). 

 But I entirely disbelieve in the propriety of regarding such differences as he 

 distinguishes between these forms as having any generic or even specific value. 

 Dr. Warming, of Copenhagen, says : — " Les Bacteries sont douees en realit6 

 dune 'plasticite illimitee, et je crois qu'il faudra renoncer au systeme de M. Cohn 

 et de quelques autres savants qui caracterisent les genres et les especes dapres 

 leur forme." Quoted in 'Quart. Journ. of Microsc. Sci.,' Jan. 1877, p. 85. It 

 is, ho wever, only fair to add that Prof. Cohn is himself by no means free from 

 doubt on the subject. 



t See p. 3. 



