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12 regulated environment where the temperature was kept at a
minimum and the humidity at a maximum.
A liberal supply of succulent food material together with wetted
cellucotton was always present in the insects' immediate environment. 3. In the same greenhouse between August 15th and September 11th, and under similar environmental conditions as outlined in
Number 2, adults only were used. In all three of the above experiments, six petri dishes
were prepared in the previously indicated manner and six earwigs introduced
into each dish. This was done within as short a period of time as possible, and was
accomplished by sorting the insects out beforehand into separate
containers. The dishes were then
covered with a fine mesh screen which was pressed
firmly to the rim and weighted down by pebbles as shown in figure 20 Periodic
observations were made to determine activity,
moribundity and mortality until such a time that either all individuals had perished or shown no further activity change. In all cases,
a second, and in same instances a third and fourth batch of earwigs was introduced
anew into each dish without changing the
chemically treated pot marker, for the purpose of testing the residual1ife of the chemical.
Observations were made until no further changes in the activity of the insects were noticed. In
another experiment, six earwigs at a time were exposed for specific periods
of one, five, ten. 15. 30 and 60 seconds to a medium concentration of the
four chemicals. In order to accomplish
this, plastic test tubes were immersed in a solution of the medium
concentration of each chemical for two seconds and then removed and
allowed to dry. The insects were then
introduced into the treated |