Duck Shooting on the Coast Marshes of 

 New Jersey 



BY T. NORRIS DEHAVEN 



The region especially referred to in the present paper extends 

 from Atlantic City northward to the upper part of Barnegat 

 Bay. It is from five to seven miles wide and includes three 

 large bays, Great, Tuckerton and Barnegat, together with a great 

 many smaller ones and numberless thoroughfares and creeks. 

 The bays have deep channels but their bottoms are mostly flats, 

 some of which are exposed at low tide while others are covered 

 with a few inches to several feet of water and usually with a 

 dense growth of marine vegetation which furnishes an abund- 

 ance of food for the water fowl. 



The vast extent of salt marsh or " meadow" that reaches out 

 on every side consists of a thick growth of Juncus gerardi, Spar- 

 tina of several species, Salicornia and other plants, the surface 

 being just above the ordinary high water, though during the 

 high tides of autumn the entire marsh is under water, with only 

 here and there a tuft of taller grass showing above the flood. 

 There are small islands scattered about the bays and on the east 

 the long narrow beach islands which form the ocean barrier and 

 are often several square miles in area, some of them supporting 

 a small growth of trees. 



The upper parts of Great Bay and Barnegat Bay are fresh or 

 nearly so, owing to the various rivers and creeks that flow into 

 them from the pine barrens, bringing down the clear brown 

 water of the cedar swamps. 



This region thus offers a great variety of feeding grounds for 

 the water fowl. The upper parts of the bays and the creeks and 

 rivers are the haunts of the marsh ducks, such as the Mallard, 

 Wood Duck, Teal and Black Duck, while the main expanse of 

 water and marsh back of the island beaches is used by the div- 



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