THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 187 



I shall next tell you a winter bait for a Roach, a Dace, or 

 Chub ; and it is choicely good. About Allhallontide, (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 tind 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 ;f 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. J 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 mucli 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- 

 se ves, and be always ready for use whensoever you incline to 

 fish ; and these gentles may be thus created till after Michaelmas. 

 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 be nice to foul your fingers, which good anglers 

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

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

 betwixt your hands till you make it clean, and as free from 

 husks as you can ; then put that water from it, and put a small 

 quantity of fresh water to it, and set it in something that is fit for 

 that purpose, over the fire, where it is not to boil apace, but 

 leisurely and very softly, until it become somewhat soft, which 

 you may try by feeling it betwixt your finger and thumb ; and 



* This is the too common grub of that destructive insect, the cock- 

 chaft'er, or May bug, (Metalontha riilgaris,} which takes two years to 

 become full grown. Anglers term it the earth bob. J. R. 

 f- This is the grub of the dung beetle, (Gestnipes stercoraria.} J. R, 

 j This strange transformation from red to black is of course fabulous. 



