632 A. E. Verrili— The Bermuda Islands. 
the lands might allow to run loose and feed on the fallen figs, but 
beating off the figs with sticks, and cutting and pruning the trees, 
were forbidden. This indicates that figs were one of the principal 
sources of food to fatten the hogs at that time. 
At present figs are by no means abundant, though wild trees are 
often seen in waste places and in the woods, where they look as if 
they had grown spontaneously. 
These figs must have belonged to a variety that is capable of self- 
fertilization, like those now grown in the West Indies, and not to 
the choice Smyrna variety, which requires caprification. There is 
no evidence that the practice of caprification has ever been tried in 
the Bermudas. But there seems to be no reason why Smyrna figs 
should not be introduced, and also the caprifying insects, for they 
have succeeded in doing so in California. 
Olive Tree. (Olea Europea Linné.) 
PLATE LXIX. 
Wild Olives were not mentioned by members of Sir George 
Somers’ party, in 1610, as growing on the islands. 
But in Governor Moore’s report or letter of 1612, he says: ‘ Alsoe 
we have olives grow with us, but no great store.” 
Governor Butler, in the early part of his “ Historye” (1619), dis- 
tinctly stated that there were wild olive trees when the islands were 
first inhabited. He had with him there, when he wrote his work, 
some of Somers’ shipwrecked party, including Christopher Carter, 
who had remained on the islands for the three years subsequent to 
the wreck (1609-1612), and before the settlement, so that he had 
opportunities to know the original productions of the islands better 
than any one else, except his two companions. But it has been 
doubted whether these accounts refer to the true Old World olive, 
for there is a native shrub of the same family (/brestiera porulosa) 
which slightly resembles the real olive, but produces a very inferior 
fruit. (See p. 620.) 
It seems to me probable that men as well informed as Governor 
Butler and his companions, and as well acquainted with olives as they 
must have been, would not have made such a mistake. It is more 
likely that the olive trees, like the wild hogs, had been introduced 
there in small numbers, some years previously, by the Spanish pirates 
or buccaneers, either accidentally or intentionally, by planting seeds. 
It is even possible that the Spanish crew wrecked there with Henry 
May, in 1593, may have saved olives from the wreck with their other 
