REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 
33 
During May the above varieties, with thrushes, warblers and 
vireos, swarm the woods. Up to about the 20th of the month a con¬ 
tinuous wave seems to be passing, hut after this it begins to wane. 
A few stragglers of many species are seen during the rest of the 
month. Some blackpoll warblers linger into June. 
THE DEPARTURE OF THE WINTER BIRDS. 
The hening gulls that are seen all winter along the coast leave 
Atlantic City about the 1st to the 10th of April; winter wrens, 
fox sparrows and snowbirds leave about the middle of April, while 
brown creepers and golden-crowned kinglets a little later. A few 
straggling snowbirds have been seen up to the 10th of May or later. 
FALL OR WINTER MIGRATION. 
The first evidence of the fall migration is seen about the last 
week in July or some years a little earlier. The first birds to start 
south are the old birds of several species. By the middle of August, 
most of the swallows, oreoles and kingbirds have gone. Birds begin 
to collect in flocks in the north by the 1st of August, especially 
swallows, bobolinks or reedbirds, grackles, blackbirds and a few 
other species, but their flight south is commenced later. Along 
our Jersey coast large flocks of these birds are seen in August, and 
some kinds, especially the bobolink or reedbirds and grackles, am 
found along the shores of the Delaware in great numbers. The- 
earliest birds from the north are the water thrush and redstart.. 
The larger number of the warblers, vireos, tanagers and thrushes, 
do not pass till from the 15th of September up to the 1st of Octo¬ 
ber. As a rule the birds that pass us in April return on their 
southern passage during October. By the 1st of November nearly 
all of these birds have passed on, while the winter visitants have 
arrived. 
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