14 BULLETIN" "732, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF' AGRICULTURE. 



minutes or more pushes down the zigzag way to the interior of the 

 fig, generally leaving her wings behind. 



While one insect is probably sufficient to fertilize a fig, it is not 

 unusual where they are very abundant, as at the Maslin orchard 

 at Loomis, to find a dozen or fifteen in one small fig and as many 

 more in a struggling mass trying to effect an entrance ; often the cluster 

 of wings can be seen radiating from the eye like. the plumes of a 

 miniature feather duster. If the caprifig from which the insect has 

 issued has been hung in a Smyrna tree, she enters a Smyrna fig and 

 then finds she has made a mistake, as the flowers are of such shape 

 that she can not oviposit in them, and after wandering about in a 

 vain effort to dispose of her eggs, in this way doing her useful work 

 of fertilizing the female flowers, in most cases she crawls out. When 

 the weather is warm, say 90° to 100° F., the insects are very active 

 and come out of the caprifig with a rush. The writer has seen 40 

 issue in one minute. The issue takes place almost entirely in the fore- 

 noon, unless a cold windy morning is succeeded by a hot sun in the 

 early afternoon, when a considerable number appear. The movement 

 depends much upon the weather. During cool windy mornings 

 very few issue, but if the next morning is warm, calm, and sunny a 

 great rush occurs. The insects continue to issue from a single fig 

 for a week or ten days if the weather is favorable, and from the figs 

 of various capri trees for two to three weeks. After the females 

 have left the fig most of the males soon follow, and, being wingless, 

 drop to the ground like the females which have lost their wings 

 in entering the Smyrna figs. 



Every Smyrna fig not entered by the Blastophaga dries up and 

 falls from the trees. In a few days the caprified fig undergoes a 

 remarkable change. It begins to increase rapidly in size, becomes 

 smooth by a lessened prominence of the ribs, and loses its pea-green 

 color, assuming a decidedly pruinose tinge, this being true also of 

 the caprifig. 



PROPORTION OF MALE AND FEMALE INSECTS IN CAPRIFIGS. 



The writer has taken some pains to determine the "proportions of 

 the sexes of the Blastophaga in caprifigs, and has found from actual 

 count of the insects of several varieties that the proportion runs from 

 two-thirds to three-quarters females. The number of galls in good 

 sound caprifigs, according to size, runs from 500 to 1,600. A 

 medium-sized mamme caprifig has been found to contain 1,015 

 healthy galls; good Milco profichi caprifigs have been found to con- 

 tain 1,200 to 1,600. After the female insects leave the caprifig most 

 of them live only 24 hours, though a very few will be found alive at 

 the end of 48 hours. It is doubtful whether they eat at all. After 

 the female has fulfilled the object of her existence, namely, providing 

 for the future generations of her species, she dies. 



