204 ON THE CAPKIFICATION OF THE FIG. 



becomes buried in the swelling and softening florets, and soon 

 decays. But whenever the insect dies immediately the surround- 

 ing parts turn brown, and subsequently blacken and rot, even 

 the scales of the mouth, which are harder than the other parts, 

 but especially the stigmata and styles in the cavity, as they pro- 

 ject beyond the perigone and bracts, and not unfrequently also 

 the ovaiy and part of the receptacle. This rarely happens where 

 the insect does not penetrate, and if the style discolours or dries 

 up, it never becomes black or rots. At any rate, experience is 

 a better guide than words, and a single glance of a practised eye 

 will tell with certainty whether the fly has been in the fig or not. 

 Now every variety of fig sheds a certain number of its fruits, 

 some more, some less ; and in the opinion of cultivators, the 

 Lardaro, the Chiaja, and the Sarnese would lose all or most of 

 theirs but for caprification. If such were the case, one would 

 naturally conclude that what fruits should fall after caprification 

 would be precisely those in which the fly had not entered. 

 With this view I one year set to examining all the figs that had 

 fallen from the Lardaro, the Chiaja, and the Sarnese, all caprified. 

 On the 29th of July (the fall of the figs commences towards the 

 end of this month and the beginning of the next), I collected 

 under the Sarnese 67 fruits, of which 35 had the insect ; three 

 days after 31, of which 24 had the insect ; the remainder were 

 black inside, but without any fly — perhaps it had got out again. 

 Afterwards I found 122 fruits with the insect, 141 without. 

 They were of different sizes, j)edag7iuoli which had first 

 appeared in June, and cimaruoli of July. 



This experiment does not prove, indeed, whether caprification 

 had been of use or not, except that if it had worked as the culti- 

 vators believed, we ought at least to have found the largest pro- 

 portion without the insect, when, on the contrary, those with the 

 insect equalled the others, or surpassed them in number, admit- 

 ting that the fly had left many. Where I made this experiment 

 I left at a certain distance another Sarnese tree without the 

 caprifig, under which I at several times collected 240 fruits, 

 amongst which 30 contained the insect, which had come from 

 other trees, although at a distance. I wished to compare the 

 number of fallen fruits of the two trees, but I found it almost 

 impossible to ascertain how many fell and how many remained ; 

 and where this could be done, the conclusions were fallacious, as 

 it was difficult to find two trees of precisely the same vigour and 

 temperament. Near the one of which I speak was a variety of 

 the other, produced from a seed which had sown itself in the 

 fissure of an old wall, with the fruit rather larger, the peduncle 

 rather longer, the pulp rather finer and whiter. 



On the 24th of July I found 14 fruits of the Lardaro with the 



