Caprification of the. /*'///. 



99 



I content mvself with illustrating in this connection a few of 

 the more distinctly marked specks, Figs. 13, 14, 15, and 16. 

 The genus interests us most, however, in indicating how Pro- 

 nuba with all her abnormal, 

 peculiarities, has been evolved ; 

 for though we have striking 

 differences in habit and mode 

 of development, of larva, pupa, 

 and imago, between Pronuba 

 and Prodoxus, yet the affinities 

 are equally striking, and the 

 two genera exemplify in an ex- PlG - ^.-PRODOXUS COLOR.YDKNSIS .- , left 



. , , front wing, hair-line underneath showing 



CeptlOna! degree the power OI natural size; 6, male genit:ilia, dorsal view 



natural selection to intensify - X15; ^ do., lateral view - x is. 

 habits and structures in opposing directions according to the 

 requirements of the species. Prodoxus is practically dependent 



upon Pronuba. for if the latter 

 did not fructify the plant, the 

 former would have in time no 

 flower stems to breed in, and 

 while Prodoxus has gone on, 

 generation after generation 

 with comparatively little 

 F; i6.-PKdDoxi WTTICULATUS: Female change, Pronuba has become 



with wings expanded hair-line showing profouildlv Specialized to fit it 





for a more specific purpose. 



CAPRIFICATION OF THE FIG. 



It was my intention here to explain to you some interesting 

 facts as to the caprification of the fig and the remarkable struct- 

 ural peculiarities and influence of the caprifig insects. It is, 

 however, a somewhat complicated subject, and I could not within 

 the time allotted me do justice both to it and the matter of Yucca 

 pollination. As an indication, however, of how profoundly 

 modified in this particular case the plant and the insect have 

 become in their mutual adaptation, I may state that the perfect 

 Smyrna fig, the most esteemed of the edible species, can be pro- 

 duced only by the intervention of the Blastophaya psenes, and 

 that Dr. D. D. Cunningham has recently shown, in the Annals 

 of the Royal Botanical Gardens' of Calcutta, vol. I, Appendix L, 

 1889, by repeated examinations of the fruit of Fleas roxburgh'd, 

 that pollination, in the ordinary me.iuin > of that term, is, in that 



