How to make Gut. Ill 



Redditch hooks range from 1 to 7, salmon ; 7 to 17, 

 smallest for trout. 



Gut, Hair, $c. 



Gut is a material prepared from the entrails of the 

 silkworm, Plate vin ; and, as it is so generally used by 

 Anglers, some account of it is necessary. It is chiefly 

 fabricated in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sicily, and the 

 Greek Islands. The following method of preparing it 

 is copied from an anonymous treatise on Angling:- 

 " Take the largest and best silkworms you can procure, 

 just when they begin to spin; this may be known by 

 their refusing to feed, and by having a fine silk thread 

 hanging from their mouths. The worms must be kept 

 in strong vinegar and covered close over for twelve 

 hours, if the weather is warm, if not, two or three 

 hours longer will be necessary. When taken out they 

 must be pulled asunder, and you will see two trans- 

 parent guts of a yellowish - green colour, as thick as 

 a straw, bent double, the rest of the inside resembling 

 boiled spinage ; you can make no hiistake. If you find 

 the guts soft, or break upon stretching them, you must 

 let the worms lie longer in the vinegar ; when fit to draw 

 off, you must dip one in the vinegar and stretch it gently, 

 with both hands, to the proper length; the gut thus 

 drawn out must be stretched out on a thin piece of board 

 (Plate vin.), by putting each end in a slit therein, and 

 placed in the sun to dry. This is the real gut, and the 

 mode of dressing it is the cause of its ends being cramped." 



The directions for choosing gut and hair are simple, 

 but are by no means on that account to be neglected. 

 When possible, select the lengths of silkworm gut, &c. 

 which are round, stiff, bright, transparent, and of an 

 even thickness from end to end. You can procure a 

 machine at the dealer's for reducing your gut to any re- 



