34 



Fish Stories 



We must confess right here, that Izaak Walton was no nat- 

 uralist. He was just what his book asserts, a " Compleat 

 Angler." He was an angler who could be tempted by no 

 competition, and no boastf ulness, into wanton taking of life. 

 One fish for one's supper, and one for a friend, or for the 

 poor widow in the thatched hut, and his string is long 

 enough. The " trout-hog " and the " fish-braggart " find no 

 encouragement from Izaak Walton. The bigness of one's 

 basket bears no relation to the success of one's angling. For 

 angling is a subjective process, not a swelling of the store 

 of meat. 



None of the naturalist's divine curiosity spurred Walton 

 on. He cared nothing for the difference among fish, and 

 never gave them an analysis. He did not know the charr, 

 which he calls the umber, from the grayling, and because 

 the grayling is scarce in " Swaynham brook," if indeed it 

 lives in any brook from Axe-edge to Dudley Green, he 

 does the " flower of fishes " scant justice. The leather lips 

 and the throat jaws of the tench and bream are simply facts 

 of the hook, to him, and give him no suggestion of their 

 common origin, or of the steps by which they have become 

 different species of fish. He is interested in making better 

 fishes out of his despised dace, rather than in finding out the 

 secrets of their fishy lives. 



The chub, he tells us, is " much objected against, not only 

 for being full of small forked bones, dispersed all through 

 the body, but worse than that, because he is waterish, and 

 the flesh of him is not firm, but short and tasteless." It is 

 his pride that he can take this " villain chub," and make him 

 a good fish by his dressing of him. Even of the brooks he 

 loves, he tells us nothing distinctive. There is no pride in 

 their names, nor joy in their geography. For aught he says, 

 they may as well be in Arcadia or Arden as in Staffordshire! 

 we only know which they are by poring over a Stafford 

 map, not from any details given us by him who has made 

 them famous. This again, is not the method of the natur- 



