Some Birds of a Maurice River Farm 



BY CHRESWELL J. HUNT 



On the afternoon of June 6th we left Millville, N. J., on 

 board the Duma, a forty-foot cabin-launch, and ran nine miles 

 down the river to Buckshutem, where the owner of the boat 

 has a little hundred-acre farm. It was my first trip on the 

 Maurice river below the Millville dam, and I was surprised at 

 the marked difference in both the character of the stream and 

 the country bordering it, the crookedness of the river and the 

 amber color of its water being the only things that the river 

 below the big dam holds in common with the river above Union 

 Lake. 



Now the pine-barren country had disappeared, and the river 

 was bordered by high sand-banks or wriggled its snake-like 

 course through stretches of tide-marsh. I have never traveled 

 a more crooked stream. We were always it seemed retracing 

 our course. 



The twenty-eight-foot dam-breast at Millville also marks a 

 distinct change in the bird-life. The little trill of the Pine 

 Warbler, so common about Union Lake, was no longer heard. 

 Its place was now filled by the gurgling song of the Long-billed 

 Marsh Wrens, while great numbers of Bank and Tree Swallows 

 skimmed over the river. Fish Hawks were fairly common, and 

 several of their huge nests could be seen in the tops of dead 

 trees. Spotted Sandpipers were abundant, King-birds much in 

 evidence and a Turkey Buzzard always in sight. The trip to 

 Buckshutem was not conducive of a large list of birds, for as 

 the Duma drew three feet of water it was necessary to keep well 

 to the channel ; also, two eight-horsepower gasoline engines 

 going full tilt make sufficient music to render indistinct the bird 

 songs that might be heard from the shore. 



On reaching Buckshutem the Ditma was headed into a sort 



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