2 Sir S. 8. Saunders' descriptions 



apod grubs, which could not have operated from without, 

 would seem to be rather attributable to some later 

 intruder having penetrated by such orifice into the fig to 

 deposit her ova. In many instances the winged species 

 of the fig-insects "issued from the mouth of the recep- 

 tacle in a cloud the moment they felt the pressure exerted 

 in pulling off the tig," which explains the absence of 

 some of the sexes ; although others, in a less advanced 

 stage of development, were arrested when in the act of 

 emerging from the seed-vessels wherein they had been 

 nurtured. A large number of apterous individuals of 

 different species, among which some approximating to 

 those fancifully designated by Walker as "a working 

 class" or "neuters?," pervaded the interior of these 

 figs, many of these being more or less mutilated, and, 

 as Mr. Wood-Mason remarks, " even the tips of the 

 mandibles are often found bitten off." A similar result 

 has been noticed in the males of Sycophaga, which never 

 quit the fig, but are found dead within before the females 

 are ready to emerge from the seed-vessels, impregnation 

 having apparently been effected, as inBlastophaga, while 

 they are still retained within the pericarp, after which 

 period the females would seem to be unapproachable by 

 these blind rovers. One of these male Blastophagce, 

 penetrating a seed-vessel containing the female, has been 

 recently figured by Prof. Westwood in our ' Transactions ' 

 (1882, pi. iv., fig. 31) ; and in the ' Proceedings ' of the 

 Holmesdale Natural History Club of Eeigate and Eed 

 Hill for 1880 (p. 48), presented to our Library, I have 

 recorded some further observations thereon ; but in the 

 Australian species, hereinafter adverted to, fecundation 

 is not limited to this early period (vide diagnosin). 



The germ-feeders found in the Ficus Indica essentially 

 differ from those of the European fauna, the serrate 

 mandibular appendages of the female being of a more 

 complex and elaborate character ; the 11-serrate spatu- 

 late process attached to the base of the mandibles having 

 also a rigid exarticulate lobe laterally appended thereto 

 and free beyond its basal attachment, extending to about 

 three-fourths of the length of the former, furnished with 

 seven stout elongate teeth, as shown in Plate I., figs. 

 10 to 13. The antennae in this sex are also very remark- 

 able, the five terminal joints being distinctly separated 

 from each other, the 8th to the 11th cyathiform, sur- 

 rounded by a compact mass of recumbent seta forming 



