92 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART I. 



way to cleanse and scour them quickly is, to put them all night 

 in water, if they be lob-worms, and then put them into your bag 

 with fennel. But you must not put your brandlings above an 

 hour in water, and then put them into fennel, for sudden use : 

 but if you have time, and purpose to keep them long, then they 

 be best preserved in an earthen pot, with good store of moss, 

 which is to be fresh every three or four days in summer, and every 

 week or eight days in winter ; 5 or, at least, the moss taken from 

 them, and clean washed, and wrung betwixt your hands till it be 

 dry, and then put it to them again. And when your worms, 

 especially the brandling, begins to be sick and lose of his bigness, 

 then you may recover him, by putting a little milk or cream, about 

 a spoonful in a day, into them, by drops on the moss ; and if 

 there be added to the cream an egg beaten and boiled in it, then 

 it will both fatten and preserve them long.* And note, that when 

 the knot, which is near to the middle of the brandling, begins 

 to swell, then he is sick* and, if he be not well looked to, is 

 near dying. And for moss, you are to note that there be divers 

 kinds of it,f which I could name to you, but I will only tell you 

 that that which is likest a buck's-horn is the best, except it be 

 soft white moss, which grows on some heaths, and is hard to be 

 found. And note, that in a very dry time, when you are put to 

 an extremity for worms, walnut-tree leaves squeezed into water, or 

 salt in water, to make it bitter or salt, and then that water poured 

 on the ground where you shall see worms are used to rise in the 

 night, will make them to appear above ground presently.;}; And 



VARIATION. 



5 with good store of moss, which is to be fresh every week or eight days. ist edit. 



* Observe that the lob, marsh, and red worms will bear more scouring than any others, 

 are better for long keeping, and that when changing their moss, particular care should 

 be taken to remove those which are dead or wounded, as they soon become putrid and 

 infect the others. H. 



t Naturalists reckon above two hundred. H. 



t This practice was one of the common sports of schoolboys at the time Erasmus 

 wrote his Colloquies. In that entitled Venatio, or Hunting, a company of them go 

 abroad into the fields, and one named Laurence proposes fishing ; but having no worms, 

 Bartholus objects the want of them, till Laurence tells him how he may get some. The 

 dialogue is very natural and descriptive. " Lau. I should like to go a-fishing ; I have 

 a neat hook. Barih. But where will you get baits? Lau. There are earth-worms 

 everywhere to be had. Barth. So there are, if they would but creep out of the ground 

 to you. Lau. I will make a great many thousands jump out presently. Barth. How? 

 by witchcraft?. Lau. You shall see the art. Fill this bucket with water ; break these 

 green shells of walnuts to pieces, and put them into it ; wet the ground with the water. 

 Now, mind a little. Do you see them coming out? Barth. I see a miracle ; I believe 

 the armed men started out of the earth after this manner, from the serpent's teeth that 

 were sown." 



The above exclamation is clearly an allusion to the fable in the second book of Ovid's 

 Mciamorphoses: where Cadmus, by scattering the serpent's teeth on the ground, causes 

 armed men to spring out of it. H. 



