FOUNDLINGS AMONGST FRUIT 455 



(Megastigmus spermotrophus] (Fig. 79). In the spring time, 

 from May onwards in Scotland, the tiny female insects, three- 

 twentieths of an inch long, wasp-like in shape, brownish- 

 yellow in colour, with clear wings, hover about the tops of 

 the Douglas Firs, and have actually been seen inserting a 

 long ovipositor between the scales of the fir cone and de- 

 positing an egg within the seed concealed there. There the 

 frubs hatch and feed, invisible and safe, for no trace of a 

 ole betrays their presence. Resting in their seed over 

 winter, carried whither the winds or man determine, they 



Fig. 80. Douglas Fir Seeds from Peeblesshire showing, in the proportion in which 

 they occur, seeds with escape holes of the Douglas Fir Seed Chalcid, an individual of which 

 is issuing from a central seed. Enlarged slightly more than twice natural size. 



finally emerge as adults, thousands of miles perhaps from 

 the place where they fell asleep. This parasite has been 

 found in Douglas Fir seeds imported from Colorado, and the 

 obvious supposition is that it was originally brought in such 

 seed to this country. Here it has taken increasing hold, for 

 Mr Crozier records that though it was present on his trans- 

 ference to Durris in 1896, the damage it then caused was 

 comparatively trifling. Nine years, however, sufficed to give 

 its ravages "a serious aspect," a very large proportion of the 

 seeds being destroyed. Since then it has spread widely in 



