A man died in endocarditis due to listeriosis in the late autumn. He had been looking after two goats during the summer. Listeria monocyto?enes was isolated from a rectal swab from one of the goats. The goat faeces isolate and the human blood isolate were of identical serovar. The two isolates, however, were shown to be different by multilocus electrophoretic enzyme analysis and ribotyping, as well as by biotyping, Thus, these results do not support the hypothesis that the man was infected by the goat.