976 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



would not lose one single ordinary drop of sap. Figs 

 wounded by a needle in such a way that many drops of 

 juice escape do not show any tendency to set better, as I 

 have repeatedly demonstrated. The gnawing of a few 

 wasps can, therefore, not have any effect on the recep- 

 tacle of the fig. Nor would caprification affect figs which 

 regularly set their fruit without the process. Thus, of 

 all the figs which we have tried in California, some fifty 

 or more varieties, only some seven or eight kinds do not 

 set their fruit, all others do. To caprificate the regular 

 and common kind of edible figs would, therefore, be a 

 useless waste of time and work. They would probably 

 produce some fertile seeds, but it is doubtful if their 

 quantity would be sufficient to greatl}/- improve the fig. It 

 has been said that the Blastophaga produces a gall in the 

 edible figs, and that this gall formation would cause the 

 figs to set and mature, in the same way as a worm-eaten 

 pear or apple ripens sooner than the uninjured fruit. But 

 we have already seen that no such gall is produced in 

 edible figs, and experiments in Italy have almost conclus- 

 ively demonstrated that the entrance of the wasps does 

 not hasten the maturity of the fig fruit (81). 



There remains only one point more. It has lately been 

 shown that in one East Indian fig the wasp causes the 

 female flowers to set seed without pollination, supposedly 

 only by piercing them, and thus causing an irritation. I 

 have good reason to believe that this is not the case as 

 regards the Smyrna fig. The wasps first received by Mr. 

 Shinn, at Niles, were let loose among the Smyrna figs in 

 his grove at Niles. I examined the wasps as they hatched 

 out from the figs and found no pollen on an}^ of them, 

 the male flowers having dried up on the passage from 

 Smyrna without producing pollen. Some twelve hours 

 after the wasps were let loose I cut open numerous 



