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BAITS. 



WORMS AND HOW TO BAIT WITH THEM. 

 I wish you all joy of the worm. Antony and Cleopatra. 



I HAVE usually found that the best worm for all sorts of 

 fishing, excepting ledgering for barbel, or bream fishing where 

 the fish run large, is the brandling or dunghill worm, found in 

 manure heaps. The manure, however, that produces these 

 worms in perfection should not be too old nor too new, but in 

 a sort of half-and-half condition, which, although the process 

 can never be an agreeable one, takes away part of the extreme 

 nastiness of collecting them. Moreover, when the right spot is. 

 discovered, they are generally found in great abundance. Pro- 

 bably the pungent smell, derived, I suppose, from its unsavoury 

 habitat, as well as its enticing red colour, are the causes of the 

 superior attractiveness of the brandling. Before being used it 

 should, however, for the double purpose of increasing its bright- 

 ness and its toughness, be thoroughly well ' scoured ; ' and to 

 effect this, the simplest and best way that I am acquainted 

 with is to place it in well damped moss for two or three days 

 before use. At the riverside worms may be carried either in a 

 box or small bag, the latter probably the most convenient, as it 

 admits of more moss to keep the worms fresh and lively, and 

 can be attached to the button-hole. A dead or disfigured 

 worm should be at once discarded and the hook rebaited. 



Mr. Alfred Mackrill gives the following recipe for keeping 

 worms after they have been caught. His establishment, it will 

 be observed, is on such an extensive scale, that it might well 



II. Q 



