FOLYGAMIA. 35 



As the flowers of the Fig of every species are all 

 closely shut up in their respective receptacles, it has 

 been an interesting subject of inquiry to know how 

 the seeds of the cultivated Fig, bearing only pistilla, 

 could be fertilized. Two eminent botanists on the Con- 

 tinent, Pontedera x and Tournefort, have investigated 

 this subject, and the result of their investigation is, 

 that a very small kind of gnat, of a black colour, no 

 where to be seen but about these trees, makes a punc- 

 ture into the figs at the time of their flowering to de- 

 posit their eggs, and in passing from one tree to 

 another to perform this office they carry with them 

 the dust of the antherae, and thus communicate the 

 fertilizing principle to the stigma of the cultivated fig. 



In the Levant, where attention to the cultivation 

 of the fig is of the utmost importance to the natives, 

 as well for food as for traffic, the peasants, during the 

 months of June and July, take these wild figs at the 

 time their gnats are ready to break out of them, to 

 their garden fig-trees 5 and every morning make an 

 inspection, and transfer only such wild figs, which 



x Julius Pontedera was an Italian Botanist, born at Vicenza, 

 in 1688. In the early part of his life he shewed a disposition- 

 for those pursuits which have given celebrity to his name. He 

 became professor of botany at Padua, and superintendant of the 

 botanic garden of that University. He was also a member of 

 the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres at Paris. He died 

 in 1757. His principal work is his Compendium tabularum 

 Botanicarum, in quo plantee 272 abeo in Italia nuper detect??- 

 recensentur, Patavii, 171 8, in 4to» 



