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Three hundred strains of Campylobacter jejuni, isolated from human patients, poultry and pigs were serotyped according to the Penner-Lauwers system and furthermore tested for hippurate hydrolysis. Serotyping showed a close relationship between human and chicken strains, whereas there was little relationship between human and pig strains. A similar conclusion was drawn from the results of the hippurate hydrolysis test: 86% of human and 94% of poultry strains were positive, whereas 91% of pig strains were negative. These data confirm the conclusions from epidemiological investigations, according to which poultry is a major source of human campylobacteriosis, while pigs are rarely so.