The Compleat ^Angler 



till it be soft, and then fry it very leisurely with honey, and a little 

 beaten saffron dissolved in milk ; and you will find this a choice bait, 

 and good, I think, for any fish, especially for roach, dace, chub, or 

 grayling : I know not but that it may be as good for a river carp, 

 and especially if the ground be a little baited with it. 



And you may also note, that the spawn of most fish is a very 

 tempting bait, being a little hardened on a warm tile, and cut into 

 fit pieces. Nay, mulberries, and those blackberries which grow upon 

 briars, be good baits for chubs or carps ; with these many have been 

 taken in ponds, and in some rivers where such trees have grown near 

 the water, and the fruits customarily dropped into it. And there be 

 a hundred other baits, more than can be well named, which, by con- 

 stant baiting the water, will become a tempting bait to any fish in it. 



You are also to know that there be divers kinds of cadis, or case- 

 worms, that are to be found in this nation, in several distinct counties, 

 and in several little brooks that relate to bigger rivers ; as namely, 

 one cadis called a piper, whose husk or case is a piece of reed about 

 an inch long, or longer, as big about as the compass of a twopence. 

 These worms being kept three or four days in a woollen bag, with 

 sand at the bottom of it, and the bag wet once a day, will in three 

 or four days turn to be yellow : and these be a choice bait for the 

 chub or chavender, or indeed for any great fish, for it is a large bait. 



There is also a lesser cadis-worm, called a cock-spur, being in 

 fashion like the spur of a cock, sharp at one end ; and the case or 

 house, in which this dwells, is made of small husks, and gravel, and 

 slime, most curiously made of these, even so as to be wondered at, 

 but not to be made by man no more than a king-fisher's nest can, 

 which is made of little fishes' bones, and have such a geometrical 

 interweaving and connection, as the like is not to be done by the art 

 of man : this kind of cadis is a choice bait for any float-fish ; it is 

 much less than the piper-cadis, and to be so ordered ; and these may 

 be so preserved, ten, fifteen, or twenty days, or it may be longer. 



There is also another cadis, called by some a straw- worm, and by 

 some a ruff-coat, whose house or case is made of little pieces of bents, 

 and rushes, and straws, and water-weeds, and I know not what, which 

 are so knit together with condensed slime, that they stick about her 



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