240 A BOOK OF INSECTS 



as soon as possible to the open air. They accordingly 

 crawl up to the mouth of the inflorescence, and in so 

 doing they come into contact with the pollen of the male 

 flowers and get dusted all over the body — head, thorax, 

 abdomen, legs, and wings. After squeezing through 

 between the scaly leaves at the mouth of the inflorescence, 

 and having at last reached the outside, they let their 

 wings dry and then run off to other inflorescences on 

 the same or a neighbouring fig-tree. I say 'run' 

 advisedly, for they but rarely make any use of their 

 wings in this act of locomotion. They now seek exclu- 

 sively inflorescences which are in an earlier stage of 

 development that they may lay their eggs in the ovaries. 

 Having found such an one they crawl to the opening 

 and slip between the scales into the interior. Some- 

 times their wings are injured in the act of entering ; 

 indeed, the wings are occasionally broken off altogether, 

 and are left sticking between the scales near the 

 aperture. Once inside the inflorescence, the wasps 

 immediately devote themselves to laying eggs, and in 

 the process are of necessity brought into contact with 

 the stigmas of female flowers. The wasps are still pow- 

 dered over with the pollen from their birthplace, and it 

 is now brushed off on to the stigmas of the female flowers, 

 which are thus pollinated from another inflorescence. 

 If the pollen is deposited on normal pistilliferous flowers 

 the latter are able to develop seeds endowed with the 

 power of germination ; if it falls on gall-flowers it is, 

 as a rule, ineffectual, because the stigmas are more or less 

 abortive. Moreover, no seeds are formed in these gall- 

 flowers, owing to the eggs of the wasp being laid in their 

 place. In those species of fig in which gall-flowers are 

 not specially provided, the eggs are laid in a certain 

 proportion of the normally developed female flowers. It 



