SEED-VESSELS WE EAT 235 



conscious of the fact that it carries pollen from 

 flower to flower? Never! She cannot avoid 

 smearing her legs and body with sticky nectar, and 

 dragging over the powdery stamens and the waxy 

 stigmas, all ready for the vitalizing dust that en- 

 ables them to set seed. But the insect is all uncon- 

 scious of doing a work for the flowers, or the tree. 

 She is selfishly gathering stolen sweets. Her own 

 well-being and that of her growing family are her 

 sole aim. 



Turkey in Asia and California are many days' 

 journey apart. Often captured Blastophagas 

 were shipped to America, but they died on the 

 way. I suppose it is hard to give sufficient air in 

 a package that contains insects small enough to go 

 easily through the meshes of ordinary cheesecloth ! 

 It is hard to supply them with proper lunch for 

 two or three weeks. But the difficult undertaking 

 at last succeeded. And the immigrant wasps took 

 up their abode in the Capri figs, and made them- 

 selves at home in the sunny climate of California. 

 The year 1899 saw our first crop of Smyrna figs 

 ripen on the "trees, as the result of the bringing in 

 of the Asiatic wasp that fertilizes the flowers. 



The grower "caprifies" his trees by hanging 

 fruits of the wild Capri fig in the branches of the 

 orchard trees, and thus making the distance short 



