76 FISHING IN AMERICAN WATERS. 



ture, and made his cup of happiness full to overflowing. 

 With a promise to visit him before taking final leave of 

 Vineyard Sound, we steered for Pasque Island, only six miles 

 distant. 



Here we found a club-house with appointments calculated 

 to render not only the members of the club and their families 

 comfortable, but all such guests as members of the associa- 

 tion think proper to extend invitations to. The island in- 

 cludes more than a thousand acres, which the club has divid- 

 ed into two farms, erected commodious buildings, including 

 club-house, ice-house, stabling, etc. The club has also vege- 

 table and flower gardens, sail-boats and row-boats, and the 

 river, which sets back a mile into the island, is stocked with 

 a hundred thousand menhaden as bait for the use of the club. 

 This is the ne plus ultra of a place for angling, being sep- 

 arate by a strait half a mile wide from Norshon, which is 

 nine miles in length by two miles wide, fifteen miles from the 

 main land, and stocked with all the English and Scotch game 

 birds and most of their game animals, including also several 

 hundred American deer, prairie-fowl, etc. It also contains a 

 large pond well stocked with black bass, besides several perch 

 ponds ; the latter is not regarded as a very valuable acces- 

 sory to any piece of real estate, for perch fishing is not con- 

 sidered sport in America. I mean the common yellow perch 

 with barred sides; but the white perch, like those of Cutty- 

 hunk, offer good sport to ladies and children, and are a very 

 good pan-fish, ranging in size from three ounces to three 

 pounds. 



We remained at Pasque Island several days, most of the 

 time angling for striped bass, but occasionally, on a dark 

 day, spending it in a cruise after swordfish, which we took 

 with the harpoon. Other days we rowed a little boat out a 

 hundred rods from shore, when we put down killick and still- 

 baited for squeteague, weighing from five to fifteen pounds 

 each. Then, again, if the bluefish came in such shoals as to 

 turn our strait into a state of commotion resembling soap- 



