Walton absurdly bids us 'let no part of the line touch the water, but the
fly only.' Barker says, 'Let the fly light first into the water.' Both
men insist on fishing down stream, which is, of course, the opposite of
the true art, for fish lie with their heads up stream, and trout are best
approached from behind. Cotton admits of fishing both up and down, as
the wind and stream may serve: and, of course, in heavy water, in
Scotland, this is all very well. But none of the old anglers, to my
knowledge, was a dry-fly fisher, and Izaak was no fly-fisher at all. He
took what he said from Mascall, who took it from the old _Treatise_, in
which, it is probable, Walton read, and followed the pleasant and to him
congenial spirit of the mediaeval angler. All these writers tooled with
huge rods, fifteen or eighteen feet in length, and Izaak had apparently
never used a reel. For salmon, he says, 'some use a wheel about the
middle of their rods or near their hand, which is to be observed better
by seeing one of them, than by a large demonstration of words.'

Mr. Westwood has made a catalogue of books cited by Walton in his
_Compleat Angler_. There is AElian (who makes the first known reference
to fly-fishing); Aldrovandus, _De Piscibus_ (1638); Dubravius, _De
Piscibus_ (1559); and the English translation (1599) Gerard's _Herball_
(1633); Gesner, _De Piscibus_ (_s.a_.) and _Historia Naturalis_ (1558);
Phil. Holland's _Pliny_ (1601); Rondelet, _De Piscibus Marines_ (1554);
Silvianus _Aquatilium Historiae_ (1554): these nearly exhaust Walton's
supply of authorities in natural history. He was devoted, as we saw, to
authority, and had a childlike faith in the fantastic theories which date
from Pliny. 'Pliny hath an opinion that many flies have their birth, or
being, from a dew that in the spring falls upon the leaves of trees.' It
is a pious opinion! Izaak is hardly so superstitious as the author of
_The Angler's Vade Mecum_. I cannot imagine him taking 'Man's fat and
cat's fat, of each half an ounce, mummy finely powdered, three drains,'