Henslow's Bunting (Ammodramus henslowii) in 

 New Jersey 



BY SAMUEL N. RHOADS 



Owing to her rather anomalous position on the faunal and 

 floral map, New Jersey has always been addicted to furnishing 

 natural history surprises. One would think that the prying 

 eyes and sensitive ears of the ninety and nine bird lovers and 

 students that have ransacked the Garden State since Audubon's 

 day would have exhausted this stock of novelties. Who would 

 have thought, among the coterie of ornithologists that formed 

 the nucleus of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club in 1890, 

 that Henslow's Bunting would prove to be locall}' an abundant 

 summer resident in our limits? At that time only one 

 specimen was known to us from anywhere in the State, and 

 many of us had no suspicion of the bird's presence there. In 

 fact Audubon's New Jersey records of it were classed among 

 those which had to do solely with that glorious golden age of 

 New Jersey ornithology when the summer tanager, mocking 

 bird, red cockaded woodpecker and heath hen were more or 

 less abundant. Of course it was not a fair line of reasoning 

 which led to such conclusions, as was proved by the specimen 

 secured by Prof. Amos P. Brown at Point Pleasant, Monmouth 

 Co., August 16, 1886, now in Mr. Witmer Stone's collection.* 

 The year previous Mr. H. G. Parker records having taken a 

 nest and eggs of this bird on Seven Mile Beach, Cape May Co.* 

 These formed the first rediscovery of a supposed lost resident of 

 New Jersey since Audubon's records of it. He says: f "This 

 species is abundant in the state of New Jerse}^ and breeds there, 

 but of this I was not aware until * * * the spring of 1838, 



*See Stone's Bds. of E. Penna. & N. .J., 1894, p. IH. 

 t Bds. of America, Vol. 8, pp. 7.5, 76. 



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