BIOLOGICAL STUDIES OF FIGS. 947 



to lay their eggs in them. But not finding any caprifigs, 

 they enter the edible figs in mistake. The effect of this 

 visit is the polhnalion of the Smyrna fig flowers with the 

 caprifig pollen brought along by the wasps. The polHna- 

 tion again causes the edible figs of a certain class to ma- 

 ture seed and to set its fruit. In order that polhnation 

 may be properly accompHshed, it is necessary that the 

 figs practiced on should have female flowers in a proper 

 state of development with receptive stigmas, and that the 

 pollen of the caprifigs should be properly developed and 

 in a good condition. Not all edible figs are equally sus- 

 ceptible of caprification. The time for caprification is in 

 June and July, according to locahty. Caprification is 

 nothing else than an artificial pollination accompHshed 

 partly by man, who suspends the caprifigs; partly by the 

 wasps, which carry the pollen from the caprifig to the fe- 

 male flowers of the edible fig. 



HISTORICAL NOTES ON CAPRIFICATION. 



There are very good reasons for supposing that caprifi- 

 cation is as old as the cultivation of the fig by man. That 

 it originated in some of the oldest agricultural countries 

 is much more probable than that the practice is of com- 

 paratively modern origin, for instance invented by the 

 Greeks during the time intervening between the Homeric 

 songs and the era of Alexander. For this behef speaks 

 the fact that the caprifig is not a native of Greece nor of 

 any other Mediterranean country, but one of southern 

 Arabia, and possibly also of other countries in the vicinity 

 of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The fig was intro- 

 duced to Greece, as has already been shown (49), and 

 whether we presume that the first introduced fig race re- 

 quired caprification or not, it follows that this caprifica- 

 tion was not and could not have been invented in Greece 

 nor in any other country where the caprifig was not orig- 



