SILK- WORM GUT. 39 



an ample supply of both. The following is a recipe I 

 have copied, from a small anonymous treatise on 

 Angling, relative to the manufacture of silk- worm gut. 

 " Take the largest and best worms you can procure, 

 just when they begin to spin. This may be known 

 by their refusing to feed, and by their having a fine 

 silk thread hanging from their mouths. The worms 

 must be kept in strong vinegar, and covered close over 

 for twelve hours, if the weather is warm ; if not, two 

 or three hours longer will be necessary. When taken 

 out, they must be pulled asunder, and you will see two 

 transparent guts of a yellowish green colour, as thick 

 as a straw, bent double, the rest of the inside re- 

 sembling boiled spinage -, you can make no mistake. 

 If you find the guts soft, or break upon stretching 

 them, you must let the worms lie longer in the vinegar; 

 when fit to draw off, you must dip one in the vinegar, 

 and stretch it gently with both hands to the proper 

 length. The gut thus drawn out, must be stretched 

 out on a thin piece of board, by putting each end in a 

 slit therein, and placed in the sun to dry. This is the 

 real gut, and the mode of dressing it is the cause of its 

 ends being cramped." 



