498 THE UNIVERSE. 



amount of influence on the iDroducts of the fig-tree. Where 

 cultivation is carried on u2)on a large scale, they take 

 boughs from the wild species, with numbers of the gall- 

 insects on them which frequent those trees, and lay them 

 upon the cultivated trees. These insects, penetrating into 

 the obscure receptacles of their cloistered flowers, spread 

 upon them the germs of generation. This is the operation 

 that is called "caprification."^ 



Thus a single fly which lives upon the fig-tree providen- 

 tially secures subsistence and commercial wealth to the 

 greatest cities of the East. 



A tiny Coleopteron, by means of its dainty taste, im- 

 parts a similar benefit to Greenland, by aiding in the re- 

 production of the Kamtchatka lily, the bulbs of which, in 

 the rigorous winters of these polar regions, alone preserve 

 all the jjopulatiou from famine. 



Willdenow, by means of an interesting experiment, 

 showed plainly what a part insects play in respect to fruc- 

 tification. He took an Aristolodiia Clematis and placed it 

 under a cage covered with gauze. As this prevented the 

 animals from reaching and penetrating within the flowers, 

 the plant produced no fruit. On the other hand, another 

 Aristolochia of the same species, which stood by the side 

 of it in the open air, so that the insects could visit it as 

 they liked, had all its flowers fecundated. 



The idea of the intervention exercised by insects is so 



^ Caprification was considered essential for the fructification of the fig- 

 tree. Aristotle, Theophrastes, and Pliuy speak of it. Their accounts a])peared 

 fabulous, but Tournefort demonstrated their correctness, having had an oppor- 

 tunity of satisfying himself duriug his travels that this practice still existed in 

 the Levant. Linnseus only srav in caprification a step by which insects transport 

 pollinic dust from the male flowers of the wild fig-tree to the female flowers of 

 the cultivated species, in order to produce fecundation. 



But the part played by the insects is restricted to puncturing the receptacle, 

 a process which stimulates the ripening of the figs, as it does that of our garden 



