112 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
to consign two or three eggs to the same pistil, before run- 
ning up to the stigma and inserting the pollen. 
While oviposition generally takes place in the manner 
described, the moth head outward (Pl. 37, Fig. 2) and 
straddling two stamens, the opposite position is sometimes 
assumed, and larve and punctures are not infrequently 
found in the upper part of the fruit, especially where 
a single fruit is stocked with ten or more larve. As 
the fruit enlarges, the mouth of the puncture forms a 
slight discolored depression, more noticeable in some 
varieties than in others; but the passage-way becomes 
obliterated. 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE EGG AND LARVA: TRANSFORMATIONS 
OF PRONUBA. 
The egg is an extremely delicate, thread-like structure, 
averaging 1.5 mm. in length and less than 0.1 mm. (PI. 37, 
fig. 1, m,n, o.) in diameter, tapering at the base and enlarg- 
ing slightly toward the capitate end, which has also a slightly 
indurated point. * It is impossible to follow it with the 
unaided eye or in fact with an ordinary lens, even if 
the pistil be at once plucked and dissected; but by 
means of careful microscopic sections, we may trace 
its course. From the position assumed by the moth, 
the ovipositor punctures the pistil somewhat obliquely, 
but as the egg is much longer than the diameter of 
the ovarian cell, the delicate oviduct of the moth 
bends and then runs vertically along the inner part of the 
cell next the placenta, and leaves the egg extending in this 
longitudinal direction along some seven or eight ovules, as 
* In the ovaries the less developed eggs are shorter and elliptical, as 
shown in my earlier figure (Proc. A. A. A. S. XXIX, Fig. 3, A.) and 
there is every gradation between this and the more mature ova which 
have the same filiform character as when seen in the Yucca pistil. It is 
interesting thus to note that the immature and undeveloped egg of Pro- 
nuba corresponds with the mature egg of Prodoxus. 
