The Relationship of Oxygen Consumption to Age and Weight during the Post-embryonic Growth of Locust a Migratoria L

INTRODUCTION The novel features of this work on the respiratory metabolism of the growing locust are (1) that successive measurements are made on individual locusts and (2) there is no period of enforced starvation preceding the measurements on oxygen consumption. The first point enables the changes of absolute values of weight and oxygen consumption with age to be considered as no allowance need be made for population variation, the measurements being linked together by being made on the same individual. For this reason, too, the relationship between weight and oxygen consumption can be considered without first of all having to express oxygen consumption as some function of weight (Weymouth et. alii 1944). The second point implies that the normal growth of the animal is uninterrupted by enforced starvation, hence the oxygen consumption of the growing animal rather than that approximating to a basal metabolism is being studied. The disadvantages of these methods are that only a few individuals from each instar can be studied, hence statistics for population values are founded on small samples; also that the individuals studied may not be 'normal' locusts. Some discussion on this latter point will be given after the results have been presented.