CAPRIFICATION OF THE FIG. 109 
generally succumbs before she regains her liberty, and her dead body 
may be found in the opened fig The work of the Blastophaga has 
not alone been that of depositing eggs. Involuntarily she has rubbed 
against some of the female flowers of the fig, and the pollen which 
adhered to her body when she entered has been deposited on the 
stigmas of these flowers. The effect of this pollination is the devel- 
opment of seeds in the female flowers. This would not have taken 
place without the aid of the wasp, because the pollen from another 
fig could not very well have penetrated through the closely thatched 
seales of the eye; and the pollen from a male flower in the same fig 
would only be ripe from a month to six weeks after the time when 
the stigmas of the female flowers will have attained their full 
development and receptivity. After the egg has been deposited 
the gall flower does not at once cease 
to develop. The embryo and kernel of 
the seed keep on growing for a month. 
After that the egg of the Blastophaga 
begins to develop, and when it passes 
into the larva stage it begins to feed on 
the embryo of the fig, which thus soon 
perishes. The integument of the ovary 
again grows and assumes the form of a 
large, hard, brownish, and glass-like 
gall. In two months the young female 
Blastophaga wasps have attained their 
full development, and after copulation 
with the wingless males are ready to - 
2 a Fic. 17.—Gall flower of caprifig, after 
leave the caprifigs ; and this they do in Solms-Laubach: 1, canal from stig- 
the same way as they left the previous —™ to ovary through which the ovi 
5 ; cia positor of the Blastophaga pushes 
crop, the profichi. The malesdie within the egg: 2, egg of Blastophaga: 3, 
the figs in all the crops. They have nucellus of the fig ovary; 4, stigma 
performed their function and are of no ag SOROS on eae 
more use. It may here be incidentally : 
stated that even if the wasp’s egg is not deposited in a gall flower, the 
latter will after a certain time cease to develop. It will never produce 
seed. 
At this time the winter figs or the ‘‘ mamme” destined to mature the 
following year are of the proper size and development required by the 
Blastophagas, which enter them in the same way as described above 
in order to deposit eggs. The mamme hibernate, and next spring, in 
March, develop and ripen and the young Blastophagas leave as before. 
(Pl. XIII.) They immediately afterwards enter the first-crop capri- 
figs and their deposited eggs will by the end of June or July have 
developed into perfect wasps. 
The cycle of the Blastophaga is thus perfected and we have followed 
its life history through the various crops of the caprifig through the 
