CHAP. XVII.] T1IE FIFTH DAY. 277 



especially at ant-flies ; concerning which take this direction, 

 for it is very good. 



Take the blackish ant-fly out of the mole-hill or ant-hill, 

 in. which place you shall find them in the month of June ; 

 or if that be too early in the year, then doubtless you may 

 find them in July, August, and most of September. Gather 

 them alive, with both their wings, and then put them into a 

 glass that will hold a quart or a pottle : but first put into 

 the glass a handful, or more, of the moist earth out of which 

 you gather them, and as much of the roots of the grass of 

 the said hillock ; and then put in the flies gently, that they 

 lose not their wings : lay a clod of earth over it, and then 

 so many as are put into the glass without bruising, will live 

 there a month or more, and be always in a readiness for you 

 to fish with : but if you would have them keep longer, then 

 get any great earthen pot, or barrel of three or four gallons, 

 which is better; then wash your barrel with water and 

 honey, and having put into it a quantity of earth and grass- 

 roots, then put in your flies, and cover it, and they will live 

 a quarter of a year. These, in any stream and clear water, 

 are a deadly bait for roach or dace, or for a chub ; and your 

 rule is, to fish not less than a handful from the bottom. 



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

 chub ; and it is choicely good. About All-hallontide, and so 

 till frost comes, when you see men ploughing up heath- 

 ground, or sandy ground, or green swards, 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 w r hat 

 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 first to be 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 Jyou 



