662 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVI II. 



past, resting in his easy chair in the verandah, seeing in minute and clear 

 detail the glowing tints on the leaves of the trees, the lichens on their trunks 

 the sunbird, the crow, the striped squirrel and the black, advancing thunder 

 cloud; or hearing the hum of the threatening mosquito, the bizz of the dazed 

 dragon-fly against the wall, the thump of the hawkmoth against the ceiling and 

 the bellowing of the bull- frogs in the rice-field : or perhaps feeling on his cheek 

 the furnace blast of May, or else scenting that first, inspiriting breath of the 

 morning which announces the approach of the cold season. For this resurrection 

 many who are now monotonously drawing their pensions will feel grateful to 

 Colonel Cunningham. 



We must recur, however, to the character of the book as a contribution to 

 science, for there is one chapter, with an Appendix, which challenges criticism 

 from this point of view and is well worth it. The subject of this chapter is the 

 " caprification" of Ficus roxburghii, a phenomenon which Colonel Cunningham 

 has minutely investigated and on which he contributed a paper to the Annals 

 of the Calcutta Botanical Gardens as long ago as 1889. It may be as well to 

 explain here that caprification is the term applied to the fertilization of figs by 

 a minute Hymenopterous insect of the family Chrysididae (nearly allied to the 

 " gall-flies ") which is bred in one fruit and afterwards passes into another, 

 carrying pollen with it. From time immemorial the fruit growers of Italy and 

 Greece have observed the practice of hanging wild figs infested with this fly 

 in their orchards, believing that otherwise the fig will not perfect its fruit. 

 Some entomologists have regarded this as a mere superstition, but others have 

 asserted that the belief was supported by facts, and a few years ago the 

 American government went to the expense of sending out an agent to Turkey for 

 the express purpose of procuring infested wild figs with a view to the improve- 

 ment of those grown in California. The superior flavour of the Smyrna fig 

 depends much on the essential oil contained in its numerous small seeds, and 

 the California-grown fig, not being caprificated, develops no seed. We are not 

 aware what success attended the American experiment, but it is now well 

 known that several species of Ficus are dependent for perfect fructification on 

 the aid of insects, the construction of the fruit, which is a closed receptacle 

 with all the flowers opening on the inside, being such that pollen can by no 

 means pass from one to another without such aid. The insects are equally 

 dependent for the propagation of their species on the figs. 



This interdependence appears to be carried to the furthest pitch in the 

 large fruits of Ficus roxburghii, which Colonel Cunningham selected for inves- 

 tigation. In this species one tree bears fruits containing only normal female 

 flowers, while another bears fruits which contain normal male flowers and also 

 female flowers strangely modified, so that they can never produce seeds but 

 furnish exactly the conditions required for receiving the eggs and nourishing 

 'the larvae of the insect that lives in them. Colonel Cunningham calls these 



gall-flowers," a misleading term, for galls are malformations produced by. 

 not conditions of preparation for, the operations of insects. If not visited 



