THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 247 



It is all soft, and full of whitish guts, a worm that 

 is in Norfolk and some other counties called a 

 grub, and is bred of the spawn or eggs of a beetle, 

 which she leaves in holes that she digs in the 

 ground under cow or horse dung, and there rests 

 all winter, and in March or April comes first to be 

 a red and then a black beetle. Gather a thousand 

 or two of these, and put them with a peck or 

 two of their own earth into some tub or firkin, 

 and cover and keep them so warm that the frost 

 or cold air or winds kill them not. These you may 

 keep all winter, and kill fish with them at any time ; 

 and if you put some of them into a little earth and 

 honey a day before you use them, you will find 

 them an excellent bait for bream, carp, or indeed 

 for almost any fish. 



And after this manner you may also keep gen- 

 tles all winter, which are a good bait then, and 

 much the better for being lively and tough. Or 

 you may breed and keep gentles thus : take a 

 piece of beast's liver, and with a cross stick hang 

 it in some corner over a pot or barrel half full of 

 dry clay ; and as the gentles grow big, they will 

 fall into the barrel, and scour themselves, and be 

 always ready for use whensoever you incline to 

 fish; and these gentles may be thus created till 

 after Michaelmas. But if you desire to keep gen- 

 tles to fish with all the year, then get a dead cat 

 or a kite, and let it be fly-blown ; and when the 

 gentles begin to be alive and to stir, then bury it 

 and them in soft, moist earth, but as free from 



