BIOLOGICAL STUDIES OF FIGS. 953 



female flowers of the fig may be properly fecundated, it 

 becomes absolutely necessary for the pollen of the anthers 

 to be distributed through the cavity of the fig. And this 

 could not be accomplished, if nature had not supplied 

 the fig with a wasp, which could carry the pollen from the 

 male flowers to the female tree. And this wasp, he says, 

 is the " psen " of the ancients, or the fig insect. The 

 opinion of Linnaeus was published in 1749. But Linn^us 

 was not aware of the fact that some figs ripened their 

 fruit without fecundation; want of material for investi- 

 gation caused him to think that the fig was absolutely 

 dioecious, in other words that it possessed sexes distinctly 

 separate only on different trees. 



John Hill again, who published his great work A 

 History of Plants, in London, 1751, refers only shortly to 

 the fig and its caprification. He condemns Tournefort's 

 theory of puncture and irritation, and states that pollina- 

 tion is the real effect of caprification; but he does not 

 refer to Linn^us, though it is probable that he must have 

 heard of the latter' s views upon the subject. 



Later in the century both Milne and Cavolini, inde- 

 pendently from each other, discovered that a difference 

 must be made between the maturing of the seed and the 

 maturing of the receptacle, and that the former maturity, 

 at least, must require pollination, even if the latter (or 

 pomological maturity) could be accomplished without it. 

 Milne clearly defines this by saying (59) : " The ques- 

 tion supposes that the fig trees in this country bring fruit 

 to maturity without assistance of caprification, and the 

 fact cannot be denied. The same thing, we have seen, 

 obtains in Spain, Provence and Malta; but the fruit, or 

 more properly, the fruit vessel, is in all cases to be dis- 

 tinguished from the seed contained within it. If the male 

 be wanting, the seed will not vegetate when sown ; but 



