216 Mr. J. O. Westwood on Caprijication. 
Memoirs of the Society of Agriculture, that he could never find 
the insect in the cultivated fig, and that in reality it did not quit 
the wild fig until the stamina were mature, and their farina dissi- 
pated, adding that what they might have brought on their wings 
must be rubbed off in the little aperture which they form for 
themselves. At Malta, where there are seven or eight varieties 
of the domestic fig, this operation is only performed on those 
which ripen latest ; the former are asserted to be of a proper size 
and full flavour without it; whence he adopts the opinion stated 
above, namely, that caprification only hastens the ripening. He 
examined the parts of fructification of the fig, and observes that 
if this examination be made previously to the ripening, there may 
be observed round the eye of the fig, and in the substance of its 
covering, small triangular dentated leaves pressed close one against 
another ; and under these leaves are the stamens, whose pollen is 
destined for the impregnation of the grains, which fill the rest of 
the fruit. These male organs are much more numerous in the 
wild fig than in the domestic, and the stamens are found to con- 
tain a yellow dust, which may be collected when it is ripe. The 
wild figs when ripe are not succulent and have no taste, though 
the grains are disposed in the same way as in the other kind. 
The pith of the grain of the wild fruit serves as food to a small 
Hymenopterous insect, whose larva is white till the moment of 
its transformation, and it is by an opening in the direction of the 
pistil that the insect penetrates the grain. From these circum- 
stances it is thought probable that the insect is only communicated 
by accident to the domestic fig, and that the flowers of this genus 
are sometimes hermaphrodites. But the number of hermaphro- 
dite flowers being fewer on the cultivated than on the wild fig, the 
seeds are fecundated more certainly and quickly by the caprifica- 
tion ; and every botanist knows that when impregnation is com- 
pleted, the flower soon withers, while, if by any accident it is de- 
layed, it continues to bloom much longer. This view of the sub- 
ject therefore explains very completely the reason why, in Malta, 
the caprification is practised on the late kind of figs, because it 
hastens the formation and maturity of the fruit. 
Dr. Lindley, in the Penny Cyclopaedia (art. Caprijication ), adopts 
this view of the operation, observing that fruits bitten by insects 
ripen sooner than others, the wound appearing to act as a stimu- 
lant to the local action of the parenchyma ; hence branches of the 
wild fig, infested with the Cynips Psenes, are introduced into the 
fig orchards, when the cultivated figs are preparing to become 
ripe, when the insects attack the latter and pierce the fruit, which 
