CHAP. xvii. THE FIFTH DAY. 155 



I shall next tell you a winter bait for a roach, a dace, or chub, 

 and it is choicely good. About All-hallowtide and so till frost 

 comes, when you see men ploughing up heath ground, or sandy 

 ground or greenswards, then follow the plough, and you shall 

 find a white worm as big as two maggots, and it hath a red 

 head : you may observe in what ground most are, for there the 

 crows will be very watchful and follow the plough very close ; it 

 is all soft, and full of whitish guts ; a worm, that is, in Norfolk 

 and some other counties, called a grub; and is bred of the 

 spawn or eggs of a beetle, which she leaves in holes that she 

 digs in the ground under cow or horse-dung, and there rests all 

 winter, and in March or April comes to be first a red, and then 

 a black beetle. Gather a thousand or two of these, and put 

 them with a peck or two of their own earth into some tub or 

 firkin, and cover and keep them so warm that the frost or cold 

 air or winds kill them not : these you may keep all winter, and 

 kill fish with them at any time ; and if you put some of them 

 into a little earth and honey, a day before you use them, you will 

 find them an excellent bait for bream, carp, or indeed for almost 

 any fish. 



And after this manner you may also keep gentles all winter ; 

 which are a good bait then, and much the better for being lively 

 and tough. Or you may breed and keep gentles thus : take a 

 piece of beast's liver, and with a cross stick hang it in some 

 corner, over a pot or barrel half full of dry clay . and as the 

 gentles grow big they will fall into the barrel and scour them- 

 selves, and be always ready for use whensoever you incline to 

 fish; and these gentles may be thus created till after Michael- 

 mas. But if you desire to keep gentles to fish with all the year, 

 then get a dead cat or a kite, and let it be fly-blown ; and when 

 the gentles begin to be alive and to stir, then bury it and them 

 in soft moist earth, but as free from frost as you can ; and these 

 you may dig up at any time when you intend to use them : these 

 will last till March, and about that time turn to be flies. 



But if you will be nice to foul your fingers, which good anglers 

 seldom are, then take this bait: get a handful of well-made 

 malt, and put into a dish of water ; and then wash and rub it 



