120 FLY FISHING FOR TROUT. 



tion is that the Reflection entitled Upon the 

 Eating of Oysters is said to have suggested to 

 Swift the first idea of Gulliver's Travels. 



The Discourses on fishing are similar to the 

 rest. In Discourse IV. Eugenius went fishing. 

 As he found the fish inclined to bite, he 

 discarded his natural flies, and put on one of 

 those counterfeit flies, 'which being made of 

 the Feathers of Wild-fowl, are not suK ;:* to 

 be drench'd by the water, whereon those ^>irds 

 are wont to swim.' He has such good sport 

 that his companion, after the inevitable 

 moralising, starts fishing too. 'A large Fish, 

 espying the Fly that kept my Hook swimming, 

 rose swiftly at it/ whereupon the angler strikes 

 and hooks him, only to be broken ignominiously. 

 It has been suggested that these passages refer 

 to a floating fly, and the allusion to a fly 'which 

 kept my Hook swimming' and was 'not subject 

 to be drench'd by the water' is relied on in 

 support. This seems plausible at first sight; 

 but such a construction would be reading into 

 the words more than they mean. As in the 

 passages quoted from Mascall and Barker, I 

 have no doubt that Boyle is describing a man 

 fishing downstream, keeping his line off the 

 water and his fly on the top. But perhaps he 

 does go a step beyond Barker, for his fly is not 

 drenched and therefore was actually dry. It 

 is nearer, but the complete attainment was not 

 to come for a century and three quarters. 



It should, however, be said that Robert 



