HOW TO FISH FOR TROUT. 153 



The trout is usually caught with a worm or a minnow, 

 which some call a penk, or with a fly, viz., either a natural or 

 an artificial fly, concerning which three I will give you some 

 observations and directions. 



And, first, for worms : of these there be very many sorts : 

 some breed only in the earth, as the earth-worm ; others of 

 or amongst plants, as the dug- worm ; and others breed either 

 out of excrements, or in the bodies of living creatures, as in 

 the horns of sheep or deer ; or some of dead flesh, as the 

 maggot or gentle, and others. 



Now these be most of them particularly good for par- 

 ticular fishes ; but for the trout, the dew-worm, which some 

 also call the lob-worm, and the brandling, are the chief ; 

 and especially the first for a great trout, and the latter for 

 a less. There be also of lob-worms some called squirrel- 

 tails, a worm that has a 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, compared 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 

 tli an 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- 



