“tA | Blastophaga Psenes. [ ZOE 
in North American Fauna, No. 3, from the lynx of San Francisco 
Mountains, Arizona. ; 
For reasons for changing the generic name Hesperomys to Ves- 
erimus, and the specific name leucopus to americanus, consult Dr. 
J. A. Allen in Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., III, 2, article xx. 
THE INTRODUCTION OF BLASTOPHAGA PSENES 
INTO CALIFORNIA. 
BY GUSTAV EISEN. 
One of the most important events in the history of California 
horticulture has just taken place. The living Blastophaga psenes 
was received in California the 25th of July this year, and was at 
once placed on the caprifig trees in Mr. James Shinn’s orchard at 
Niles. _ 
In 1882 I first called the attention of the fig-growers of this State 
to the real cause of the failure of the true Smyra fig to mature its 
fruit, and since that time I have had occasion to refer to this fact 
repeatedly. 
The cultivated edible figs contain, with a few and very rare ex- 
ceptions, only female or pistillate flowers. The majority of fig vari- 
eties mature their fruit without being pollinated by male flowers, but 
a few—and among them the Smyrna varieties, the best ones for 
drying—do not, or only rarely, mature fruit without having previ- 
ously been pollinated. As the cultivated fig varieties have no 
male flowers, the wild or caprifig (/%cus carica), which possesses 
such flowers in abundance, has been made use of to furnish the 
pollen necessary to bring the female flowers to development. This 
practice is very old, and is as yet in vogue in Asia Minor, Sicily and 
other Mediterranean countries, As the male flowers and their pol- 
len are enclosed in a large receptacle, it is evident that the pollina- 
tion cannot take place by the aid of the wind or by insects gener- 
ally. As far as the caprifig is concerned, only one variety of insect _ 
is of any practical value in transmitting the pollen to the female figs. 
This insect is the minute wasp known as Blastophaga psenes, which 
inhabits the caprifigs, and here produces three broods yeatly, or « 
one each for the various crops of caprifigs. The caprification of 
the figs consists in hanging caprifigs on the branches of the culti- 
