217 
Mr. J. O. Westwood on Caprijication. 
thus ripens sooner, enabling the growers to obtain two crops in a 
year, although the process is said to deteriorate the fruit. In 
opposition to this statement, the celebrated entomologist Olivier, 
who was for a considerable time in the Archipelago, affirms that 
this practice of caprification “ n’est autre chose qu’un tribut que 
l’homme paye a l’ignorance et aux prejuges ; parcequ’en France, 
en Italie, en Espagne, et dans plusieurs contrees du Levant, oil la 
caprification n’est pas eonnue, on y obtient des Agues bonnes a 
manger.” — Nouv. Diet, d’ Hist. Nat. art. Caprijication. It is how- 
ever affirmed by other authors that a skilful caprification rewards 
the dexterous husbandman with a much larger increase of fruit 
than could otherwise be produced, and that a tree of the same 
size, which in the south of France, where caprification is not prac- 
tised, may produce about twenty-five pounds of fruit, will by that 
art, in the Grecian islands, bring ten times that quantity ; and it 
will be observed that Olivier does not attempt to show that the 
“ Agues bonnes a manger ” had not been naturally instead of arti- 
ficially visited by insects. 
The accounts given by Pontedera and Tournefort of the manner 
in which this curious operation is performed, are very precise ; 
that of the former is contained in the Anthologia, and that of the 
latter in the Voyage to the Levant, and in a memoir delivered to 
the Academy of Sciences at Paris, in 1705. Tournefort’s account 
is as follows : — “ Of the thirty species or varieties of the domestic 
fig-tree which are cultivated in France, Spain, and Italy, there are 
but two cultivated in the Archipelago. The first species is called 
Ornos, from the old Greek Erinos, which answers to Caprijicus in 
Latin, and signifies a wild fig-tree. The second is the domestic 
or garden fig-tree. The former bears successively in the same 
year three sorts of fruit, called Fornites, Cratitires, and Orni ; 
which, though not good to eat, are found absolutely necessary to- 
wards ripening those of the garden fig. These fruits have a sleek 
even skin, are of a deep green colour, and contain in their dry and 
mealy inside several male and female flowers, placed upon dis- 
tinct foot-stalks, the former above the latter. The Fornites ap- 
pear in August, and continue to November without ripening ; in 
these are bred small worms, which turn to a sort of gnats, no 
where to be seen but about these trees. In October and Novem- 
ber these gnats of themselves make a puncture into the second 
fruit, which is called Cratitires. These do not show themselves 
till towards the end of September. The Fornites gradually fall 
away after the gnats are gone ; the Cratitires, on the contrary, 
remain on the tree till May, and inclose the eggs deposited by the 
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