ORNITHOLOGIST 



— AND- 



OOLOGIST. 



$1.00 per 

 Annum. 



PUBLISHED BY FRANK B. WEBSTER. 



Established, March, 1875. 



Single Copy 

 10 cents. 



Vol. XIV. 



BOSTON, MASS., JANUARY, 1889. 



No. I. 



A Trip to Seven-Mile Beach, New 

 Jersey. 



The birds are being rapidly driven from the 

 chain of island beaches which extend along 

 the Atlantic coast of lower New Jersey. These 

 islands have one by one been converted into 

 pleasure grounds for the summer visitor, and 

 all the beauties of wildest Nature, here so prodi- 

 gally bestowed, have been completely obliter- 

 ated to make way for the demands of a latter 

 day civilization. Noble cedars, red-berried 

 holly, grand pines, most of which have endured 

 the gales of a century, are forced to give 

 way before the woodman's relentless axe. The 

 towering sand hills are lowered and used to lill 

 in the marsh and meadow lands on the south 

 side of the beaclies, and what was once consid- 

 ered matchless ground for collecting is now the 

 site of permanent and summer cities. 



To the one island which has resisted the ad- 

 vance of society, and which with the excep- 

 tion of a new settlement on the northern end, 

 is still in a i^rimitive state of wild disorder, 

 I made two visits this past season to become 

 familiar with the habits and manners of the 

 birds, and make some needed additions in series 

 of eggs for my cjUection. 



The American Osprey {Pandion IiKllaeiuH cur- 

 (dinenHtx) was the noblest of the birds. Of these 

 species there was probably breeding at the 

 time of my first visit about fifty pairs. Their 

 nests are the most conspicuous of all objects, 

 some of them having evidently been tenanted 

 for many years, and with their annual addi- 

 tions of material are enormous, and the con- 

 tents difficult of access. The nest trees are 

 generally dead, though not invariably, and I 

 am satisfied that the ordure and garbage which 

 the birds drop all over and around the trees 

 have nothing whatever to do with killing them. 

 One pair of birds who were robbed on 

 my first visit, and nest torn down, immedi- 

 ately went to building on a neighboring tree 



which had been dead for years. Besides this, 

 the place abounds in dead trees, and being either 

 l^ine or cedar become well seasoned with saline 

 matter and salt air, so that the dead trees are as 

 strong as the living ones, and I think tlie Os- 

 prey selects them in preference to the others. 

 A fisherman who lives on this place assured 

 me that one particular living tree from which 

 I took a handsome clutch of three eggs on 

 May 2:^, had been occupied by the same pair of 

 birds for at least ten years to his certain knowl- 

 edge, and the tree is as green and prosperous 

 now as ever. 



Old birds build higher in the trees than young 

 ones, and often select larger and more difficult 

 trees to climb. The largest nests, I reasoned, 

 belong to the older birds, who have added to 

 their fagot homes for years, and such nests in- 

 variably contained sets of three heavily marked 

 eggs. The small and new nests were always 

 occupied by a youthful pair, and were built 

 either on low trees or on some portion of up- 

 rooted trunks, of which there are a great 

 many. 



When I saw one of these low, small nests, I 

 thought to myself, here is a lightly marked set 

 of two, and such proved to be the case always. 

 " Lookout nest," the most magnificent eyrie 

 of the entire colony was built on the top of a 

 mammoth pine exactly ninety feet from the 

 ground, on a piece of higher land than the 

 surrounding meadows and beach, and I was 

 well repaid for a bruising and tiresome climb 

 by a peerless set of four fresh eggs of the 

 brightest red hue, as well as the commanding 

 view of ocean and woodland for miles around. 

 Nests so situated are rare, and the oologist will 

 find most nests easy to reach, though sets of 

 four sometimes come high, and of a large and 

 striking series of eggs taken this was the only 

 set of that number. 



An inexperienced set of Ospreys had built 

 their nest upon an overturned tree upon a por- 

 tion of the meadow land very difficult of ac- 



Copyright, 18S9, by Frank B. Webster. 



