So Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society. 
string of barges; here and there we may meet a yacht, or 
if we are fortunate, one of the “White Fleet” moving 
majestically along toward Newport; or perhaps we may see 
an ocean liner. Indeed it was a day like this and from the 
deck of an in-coming Cunarder that I got my first glimpse 
of Block Island, many years ago. 
This trip to the fishing-grounds offers a succession of 
beautiful marine pictures, and should craft be wanting there 
is plenty else to see. Not even the voyage to Liverpool 
presents so much variety. Large patches of gulf-weed float 
here and there — the Gulf Stream is not far away. A 
shoal of bonito breaks the surface, or there are flocks of 
gulls resting upon the water and rising at our approach 
or hovering over schools of small fish, while “Mother 
Cary’s chickens” are everywhere along our course. Should 
there chance to be a slight breeze now and then the 
“Portuguese Man o’War” may make his appearance, sailing 
his purple fleet against the wind. Sometimes turtle are 
to be seen, and on one trip that I made we saw the 
handsome little rudder-fish haunting the shady corners of 
a floating piece of wreckage, as is his wont. On another 
occasion the lookout shouted that a “man-eater” was along¬ 
side. Looking down into the water I saw the wicked¬ 
looking head of a shark whose total length must have 
been some eighteen or- twenty feet. He was swimming 
parallel to us and not more than ten feet away, hoping, 
very likely, that I might fall overboard! Another time a 
whale — a little one, only thirty feet long or so — evidently 
took the steamer for one of his relatives and accompanied 
us for a mile or two, showing his entire length out of 
water, not more than two hundred yards distant. 
Gradually the high southern bluffs of the island, the 
only land in sight, grow smaller in the north, until they 
resemble a long, square bank, and then a bluish cloud 
upon the horizon, and at last disappear. We are out of 
sight of land and upon the “high seas,” with nothing be¬ 
tween us and Portugal to the east or the Bahamas to the 
