4 Fish Stories 



him, and the result sets a stamp upon his genius, and the 

 fact that he borrowed from his predecessors has made them 

 famous. Walton dallied with *' The Treatyse of Fysshynge 

 wyth an angle," 1496, which is, perhaps, the earliest known 

 work on fishing. Its alleged author was a woman, Dame Ju- 

 liana Berners. Among other old books from which Walton 

 borrowed is '' The Book of Fishing with Hooke and Line," 

 1609, by Leonard Mascall, another pirate who stole from the 

 older treatises ; and in the " Compleat Angler " there are ref- 

 erences from " Aquatilium Historise," 1554; Rondelet's " De 

 Piscibus," 1554; Aldrovandi's *' De Piscibus," 1638; a 

 similar book by Dubravius, 1559; Gerard's " Herball," 1633 ; 

 "Historia Naturalis," by Gesner, 1558, and the other books 

 by brave old story-tellers who would have left great names 

 in science, had the fashion of testing experience, and setting 

 it in order, been as well developed as in our day. 



And so angling has gone on year by year, and nearly every 

 fish story is hoary with age, and can be traced back deep 

 into the past, when preadamites brought in their strings of 

 fish, and as they gnawed the bones, dilated upon their sev- 

 eral catches, and especially on the size, strength and game- 

 ness of one fish that got away. 



