OF WASHINGTON. 145 



APRIL 7, 1904. 



The rS6th regular meeting 1 was held at the Saengerbund Hall, 

 3140 street, N.W., Vice-President Banks in the chair, and Messrs. 

 Ashmead, Barber, Benton. Busck, Caudell, Currie, Dyar, Gill, 

 Heidemann, Kotinsky, Morris, Patten, Schwarz and Ulke, mem 

 bers, and Mr. Frederick Knab, visitor, present. 



Mr. Schwarz exhibited some fruit of the wild fig tree found 

 at Cayamas, Cuba, and specimens of the insects found in them. 

 At Cayamas only four trees of Ficus were found in the timber 

 all of them of very tall growth, the lowest branches being from 

 40 to 50 feet above ground, so that no close observation could be 

 made. In the middle of February bird droppings on the leaves 

 of various low shrubbery were noticed to be composed of seeds of 

 tigs intermingled with minute insect remains. About the same 

 time scattered specimens of the hymenoptcrous genus Idarnes 

 a well-known parasite of Blastophaga could be found flying 

 about in the woods. Finally, from one of these trees the drop 

 ping of ripe figs commenced at the rate of about four in one 

 minute and many thousands of figs dropped from this one tree in 

 the course of a few days. An investigation of these fallen figs 

 showed that they were male figs, /. e., every one of the seeds 

 was a gall flower inhabited by the true caprificators (Blasto 

 phaga} or by parasites belonging to the genus Idarnes. Not a 

 single specimen of a female Blastophaga was found in the falling 

 figs, but only males, averaging in number from seven to twenty 

 in one fig. Both <$ and 9 specimens of the parasitic Idarnes 

 abounded in the figs. These parasites issue from a single hole 

 in the side of the fig, but it appears that they can issue only at a 

 certain period in the ripening of the fruit, for many figs were found 

 in which the Idarnes had been unable to escape and had died. 

 Mr. Schwarz has come to the conclusion that the particular tree 

 from which the figs were dropping was a caprifig tree, /. ., a 

 male tree, and, to all appearance, of the same character as the 

 caprifig tree in the Smyrna figs. The other trees, from which 

 not a single fig was falling, were, it may be inferred, either female 



