CORIDON

Then let's meet here, for here are fresh sheets that smell of lavender; and I am sure we can

not expect better meat or better usage in any place.

PETER

'Tis a match. Good-night to everybody.

G

More Directions

How to Fish for the Trout, &c.

PISCATOR

OOD-MORROW, good hostess, I see my brother Peter is still in bed. Come, give my scholar and me a morning drink, and a bit of meat to breakfast; and be sure to get a dish of meat or two against supper, for we shall come home as hungry as hawks. Come, scholar, let's be going.

VENATOR

Well now, good master, as we walk towards the river, give me direction, according to your promise, how I shall fish for a trout.

PISCATOR

My honest scholar, I will take this very convenient opportunity to do it.

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.

very

And first, for worms. Of these there be 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 particular 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'sdung, rather than 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 marshworm, the tag-tail, the flag-worm, the dockworm, the oak-worm, the gilt-tail, the twachel or lob-worm, which of all others is the most excellent bait for a salmon, and too many to name

-even as many sorts as some think there be of several herbs or shrubs, or of several kinds of birds in the air; of which I shall say no more, but tell you, that what worms soever you fish with are the better for being well scoured, that is, long kept before they be used; and in case you have

not been so provident, then the way to cleanse and scour them quickly is to put them all night in water, if they be lob-worms, and then put them into your bag with fennel. But you must not put your brandlings above an hour in water, and then put them into fennel, for sudden use: but if you have time, and purpose to keep them long, then they be best preserved in an earthen pot, with good store of moss, which is to be fresh every three or four days in summer, and every week or eight days in winter; or, at least, the moss taken from them, and clean washed, and wrung betwixt your hands till it be dry, and then put it to them again. And when your worm, especially the brandling, begins to be sick and lose of his bigness, then you may recover him by putting a little milk or cream, about a spoonful in a day, into them, by drops on the moss; and if there be added to the cream an egg beaten and boiled in it, then it will both fatten and preserve them long. And note that, when the knot, which is near to the middle of the brandling, begins to swell, then he is sick, and, if he be not well looked to, is near dying. And for moss,