74 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART i. 



red head, a streak down the back, and a broad tail, which are 

 noted to be the best, because they 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, com- 

 pared 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 provi- 

 dent, 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 brand- 

 lings 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 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 mi-Ik 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 



