Bacterial Groups in Decomposing Salmon

In a previous paper (liunter, 1920) regarding the decomposi-tion of salmon the total counts of bacteria found in the muscular tissue of the back and belly of the fish were given. The occur-rence of these bacteria in the viscera and various organs of the salmon in different stages of decomposition was also discussed. The data presented were all obtained from experiments upon salmon handling as conducted in the Puget Sound region. From the mixed cultures and the plates made in the field 300 cultures were isolated and studied with the idea of grouping or typing the organisms significant in the decomposition of the salmon. Special care was taken to select those colonies which predomi-nated on the plates. It was evident that many organisms were obtained-which played no part in the decomposition of the fish and that there were also many duplicates among the original 300 cultures. In order to eliminate the organisms which did not decompose salmon, and to check off the duplicates, use was made of a spe-cially prepared fish broth.2 The 300 cultures were grown in this