Parasites, Diseases and Enemies. 283 



fish is the soft larva of the May-fly, also called shad-%, 

 eel-fly, and by other names; it is one of the ephemera 

 which only lives for a day or two in the perfect, or 

 imago, state, but passes several years in the larval state 

 in the water. 



MAMMALS. 



Years ago I met in executive session, all alone, and 

 passed a law that I should not be allowed to take the 



Male Helgramite Fly. 



life of any living thing unless it was needed by me,- or 

 because it worked injury to my interests. Those are 

 the only circurnstances under which a man should kill 

 anything. The law was flexible enough to allow of 

 shooting a few game birds for my own table and for 

 taking fish also. A pair of ospreys, sometimes called 

 "fish-hawks," nested above my ponds every year, and 

 often sailed over them with longing eyes, but my orders 

 were not to harm them; they went to the salt water a 

 few hundred yards below, and it was worth the price 

 of admission to see them plunge from a height of a 

 hundred feet and get a fish, One young one, and only 



