THE 



WILSON BULLETIN 



NO. 53. 



A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY 



VOL. XVII. DECEMBER, 1905. No. 4- 



A-BIRDING AMONG THE NEW JERSEY PINES. 



CHRESWELL J. HUNT. 



It was on the morning of May thirty-first, 1905, that three 

 of us started from Medford, N. J., with horse, wagon and 

 camip equipage for a trip through the New Jersey pine barrens. 



Medford is situated at the edge of the pine barren region. 

 This part of the pine barrens lying in Burlington and Ocean 

 counties is one of the wildest sections to be found in the eastern 

 states. Cranberry raising is about the only industry and 

 the few houses to be seen are to be found in the vicinity 

 of the cranberry bogs, but they are indeed few and very far 

 between. Charcoal burning was carried on in some places but 

 this now seeiris to be mostly obsolete. A person lost in this 

 section may wander about for days without meeting a trace of 

 civilization. The roads are rarely used and are nothing 

 more than mere sand trails through the woods. Before the 

 advent of the seashtre railroads these roads were the only 

 means of reaching the coast and now the ruins of one time 

 prosperous inns may be seen. In fact almost all the oysters 

 used in Philadelphia were at one time hauled over the Chats- 

 worth-Tuckerton road. We traveled this road for a number of 

 miles, and when returning over it two days later our old wheel 

 tracks were yet to be seen, nothing else having traversed it in 

 the meantime. 



From Medford < ur route lay nearly southeast through the 

 wildest part of the barrens. Here are extensive forests of 



