The fourth day

Piscator. Good-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 peek, 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 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's-dung, 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.