The Compleat ^Angler 



are the toughest and most lively, and live longest in the water : for 

 you are to know that a dead worm is but a dead bait, and like to 

 catch nothing, compared to a lively, quick, stirring worm : and for 

 a brandling, he is usually found in an old dunghill, or some very 

 rotten place near to it : but most usually in cow-dung, or hog's 

 dung, rather than horse-dung, which is somewhat too hot and dry 

 for that worm. But the best of them are to be found in the bark 

 of the tanners, which they cast up in heaps after they have used it 

 about their leather. 



There are also divers other kinds of worms, which for colour and 

 shape alter even as the ground out of which they are got ; as the 

 marsh-worm, the tag-tail, the flag-worm, the dock-worm, the oak- 

 worm, the gilt-tail, the twachel, or lob-worm, which of all others is 

 the most excellent bait for a salmon ; and too many to name, even 

 as many sorts as some think there be of several herbs or shrubs, or 

 of several kinds of birds in the air ; of which I shall say no more, 

 but tell you that what worms soever you fish with are the better for 

 being well scoured, that is, long kept before they be used : and in 

 case you have not been so provident, then the 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 ; or, at 

 least, the moss taken from them and clean washed, and wrung be- 

 twixt 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 brand- 

 ling, 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 



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