  The fishbone potential of composite particles simulates the Pauli effect by
nonlocal terms. We determine the $\alpha-\alpha$ fishbone potential by
simultaneously fitting to two-$\alpha$ resonance energies, experimental phase
shifts and three-$\alpha$ binding energies. We found that essentially a simple
gaussian can provide a good description of two-$\alpha$ and three-$\alpha$
experimental data without invoking three-body potentials.
