Earthworms Drowned in Puddles

Abstract

ANGLERS use earthworms, and worms found in the little heaps of mud-scrapings on country roads are specially valued as being of a fine, delicate pink colour, clean and tough. I have heard anglers in North Wales say that no worms were so good, especially for sea-trout. But since road-tarring became so general the phenols (=carbolic acid) dissolved out of the tar by rain destroy the worms. Unfortunately, in numberless cases the trout have also been destroyed, adult fish as well as fry, and American experiments have proved that the spermatozoa of fish are killed by carbolic acid from tar even when so diluted as to be almost undetectable by any test.