222 Scott on Birds at Long Beach, N. J. 



" The bii'ds soon ceased to sing, and as it was almost useless to 

 try to put them up from the grass, I let them alone, after making 

 several fruitless efforts to find their nests. In August I chanced to 

 pass through the same locality, and was surprised to hear the same 

 bird singing again. I spent several days hunting for them and 

 got only three in worn and faded plumage. These were so different 

 from my April specimens that 1 thought them to be P. cBstivalis 

 until your letter of recent date. 



" The song I cannot describe ; it has one note which renders it 

 distinguishable from all other birds which I have heard, and which 

 is readily distinguishable from that of Peucoea cassini. Upon the 

 whole, it is a very soft, plaintive, and pleasing chant." 



NOTES ON BIRDS OBSERVED AT LONG BEACH, NEW 



JERSEY. 



BY W. E. D. SCOTT. 



Long Beach, New Jersey, like many other islands that form a 

 barrier between the ocean and the bays of the Atlantic coast, from 

 Long Island southward, is a long narrow strip of sand, extending 

 from Barnegat Inlet on the north to Little Egg Harbor, a distance of 

 about twenty-four miles. It nowhere exceeds a mile in width, and 

 often has a breadth of only a few hundred feet, while at many 

 points it is so low that during very high tides the bay and ocean com- 

 municate. Its distance from the main-land is about seven miles. 

 The sand, beginning at the surf, extends back perfectly level for 

 some distance, just above high water; then sand-hills from twenty 

 to forty feet high rise abruptly, forming miniature precipices on 

 the side toward the ocean ; they slope off gradually toward the bay, 

 and finally terminate in low marshy ground. The sands have no 

 vegetation ; the hills ai-e generally covered with a stunted growth 

 of a kind of baybeiTy [Myrica cerifera), and at some points with a few 

 cedars and a little coarse grass. The marsh land is covei-ed with 

 a dense growth of coarse grasses, I'eeds, and the like. In the bay, 

 are smaller islands, consisting wholly of "marsh," which at one 

 point almost connect Long Beach with the main-land. 



The following observations were made principally during a resi- 



