384 Sir S. S. Saunders on Fig-Insects 



obtained the same species in July from the second crop 

 of these figs, which attain maturity at that period ; and 

 has forwarded a mass of their abdomens (10 or 12) 

 with the ovipositors attached, found conglomerated 

 together on one occasion inside a fig, serving to display 

 the respective parts of the peculiar oviduct, as now 

 exhibited. He has not, however, succeeded in finding 

 the C. Ficus of Hasselquist, described as " Corpus totum 

 rufum " ; all the Blastophagce met with in these figs 

 being nigro-ceneous in the females, like the B. grossorum 

 of Gravenhorst. The apterous males have also abounded, 

 but no specimens have been found which could be 

 ascribed to the other sex of C. Caricce, though many of 

 the figs themselves have been transmitted at various 

 periods. 



Although the C. Caricce, had been confounded with the 

 C. Ficus since Linnaeus' time, yet in Dr. Paul Meyer's 

 elaborate Treatise aforesaid the figure of an insect, 

 apparently identical with these Smyrna specimens, 

 though not described by him, is given under the name 

 of Ichneumon ficarius of Cavolini (1782), together with 

 that of its reputed male, a subapterous species closely 

 resembling the Sycoscaptella ? 4-setosa from Ceylon, 

 recently figured and described by Professor Westwood 

 in our « Transactions ' (1883, p. 43 ; Plate X., fig. 76). 

 These Smyrna specimens, no less than the female which 

 has been attributed by Dr. Thwaites to the Ceylon sub- 

 apterous species (as more recently reverted to by Prof. 

 Westwood), structurally coincide with the female Idarncs 

 transiens, Wlk. (Idarnella, Westw.) which has a winged 

 male corresponding with its winged partner mutatis 

 mutandis ; both figured and described by Professor West- 

 wood (loc. cit., Plate VI., fig. 36, male ; fig. 37, female ; 

 with details, figs. 38 — 42). Thus we are led to infer 

 that, however closely these several species are assimi- 

 lated in the one sex, a paradoxical divergence occurs 

 among them in the other, not only as regards alary 

 characters, but also in general structural disparity.* 



* I have just received from Gallipoli, in Italy, a female specimen 

 of the Ichneumon ficarius of Cavolini, which differs from the 

 Smyrna specimens in its far less gibbous, more attenuated and elon- 

 gate thorax and abdomen, seen laterally ; and also one of its sub- 

 apterous partners (according to Cavolini) apparently coinciding with 

 the aforesaid Sycoscaptella I 4-setosa, Westw., from Cejdon. Both 

 were obtained alive in the early part of October from the third 

 crop of the Caprificus figs — the so-called " Mammoni" of the 

 Italians — the " Fornites " of Tournefort. Oct. 13th. 



