worm and minnow
to no purpose, though he picks up 'a trout will fill six reasonable
bellies' in the evening. So we leave them, after their ale, in fresh
sheets that smell of lavender.' Izaak's practical advice is not of much
worth; we read him rather for sentences like this: 'I'll tell you,
scholar: when I sat last on this primrose bank, and looked down these
meadows, I thought of them as Charles the Emperor did of the city of
Florence, "that they were too pleasant to be looked upon, but only on
holy-days."' He did not say, like Fox, when Burke spoke of 'a seat under
a tree, with a friend, a bottle, and a book,' 'Why a book?' Izaak took
his book with him--a practice in which, at least, I am fain to imitate
this excellent old man.

As to salmon, Walton scarcely speaks a true word about their habits,
except by accident. Concerning pike, he quotes the theory that they are
bred by pickerel weed, only as what 'some think.' In describing the use
of frogs as bait, he makes the famous, or infamous, remark, 'Use him as
though you loved him . . . that he may live the longer.' A bait-fisher
_may_ be a good man, as Izaak was, but it is easier for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle. As coarse fish are usually caught only with
bait, I shall not follow Izaak on to this unholy and unfamiliar ground,
wherein, none the less, grow flowers of Walton's fancy, and the songs of
the old poets are heard. _The Practical Angler_, indeed, is a book to be
marked with flowers, marsh marigolds and fritillaries, and petals of the
yellow iris, for the whole provokes us to content, and whispers that word
of the apostle, 'Study to be quiet.'

FISHING THEN AND NOW

Since Maui, the Maori hero, invented barbs for hooks, angling has been
essentially one and the same thing. South Sea islanders spin for fish
with a mother-of-pearl lure which is also a hook, and answers to our
spoon. We have hooks of stone, and hooks of bone; and a bronze hook,
found in Ireland, has the familiar Limerick bend. What Homer meant by
making anglers throw 'the horn of an ox of the stall' into the sea, we
can only guess; perhaps a horn minnow is meant, or a little sheath of
horn to protect the line. Dead bait, live bait, and imitations of bait
have all been employed, and AElian mentions artificial Mayflies used,
with a very short line, by the Illyrians.

But, while the same in essence, angling has been improved by human
ingenuity. The Waltonian angl