These insects seek the light, and are attracted by an artificial one,
describing concentric circles around it and finally falling into it and
being burnt up. Their bodies on falling into the water constitute a food
which is eagerly sought by fishes, and which is made use of by fishermen
as a bait.
But the above is not the only state of Ephemerids, for their entire
existence really lasts a year. Linnaeus has thus summed up the total life
of these little creatures: "The larvae swim in water; and, in becoming
winged insects, have only the shortest kind of joy, for they often
celebrate in a single day their wedding, parturition, and funeral
obsequies." The eggs, in fact, give birth to more or less elongated
larvae, which are always provided with three filaments at the end of
the abdomen, and which breathe the oxygen dissolved in the water by
tracheo-branchiae along the sides of the body. They are carnivorous, and
live on small animal prey. The most recent authors who have studied
them are Mr. Eaton, in England, and Mr. Vayssiere, of the Faculte des
Sciences, at Marseilles.
_A propos_ of the larvae of Ephemera or May-flies, we must speak of one
of the entomological rarities of France, the nature and zoological place
of which it has taken more than a century to demonstrate.
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