muBuss-mm mo imm 
ahead of me. The road had not improved any 
since morning. The horses tried to keep up 
with the light and it was a constant hustle to 
keep from under their feet. The load was 
heavy, so we made frequent stops to rest the 
horses, and it was 10:30 p. m. when we reached 
the settlement. Neither the sheriff nor the 
warden was on hand to collect the fine, nor was 
our triumphant return witnessed by a large num¬ 
ber of natives, as they were all asleep. After 
something to eat and some hot tea all felt more 
cheerful. I suggested to Ben that a bed would 
look good to me. “But we haven’t skinned out 
those moose heads;” he replied; “we must do 
it before we sleep, for there will be no time 
in the morning.” It was a big effort for me 
to tackle that job. I hope the taxidermist liked 
the work I did on mine; I shall never do an¬ 
other. The scalp of that moose stuck to his 
old skull tighter than the bark to a tree after 
a hard freeze. Every inch of it had to be pried 
off with a knife. Jimmie stayed up with us and 
was kept busy running errands and sharpening 
our knives. It was 4 a. m. before we finished 
the moose and had all of the six heads sewed 
up in burlap. We wanted to take home some 
meat, as we were due to give game dinners to 
our friends, so we next picked out some hind 
quarters of deer and caribou and boxed them 
up for shipment. Then we did some necessary 
cleaning up. Ben performed a painful opera¬ 
tion on a two weeks’ growth of beard and we 
dressed in time for breakfast. 
Jimmie drove down to the station with our 
outfit and heads and was on hand to see u 
off. Honest, faithful Jimmie Storey, may hi 
shadow never grow less! He did his wor 
cheerfully in all weathers; as a guide and 
woodsman he delivered the goods, and I ar 
proud to call him friend. 
At 10:30 Monday night I climbed aboard th 
sleeper at Vanceboro, Maine. I had gone dow 
ahead on the Montreal Express to clear tb 
heads and meat through customs. Ben had fo 
lowed on the through train from St. John wit 
the baggage, had secured our berths and ws 
waiting for me. Rex was aboard the baggag 
car with his excess tag on his collar and ever) 
thing was attended to. “Well, Ben, let’s ca 
it a day and turn in,” I said. After forty-or 
hours without sleep we were ready for a res 
New Jersey Birds. 
Sportsmen and naturalists who reside near 
the Middle Atlantic coast will do well to pro¬ 
cure a copy of the Report of the New Jersey 
State Museum for 1908, which contains two 
papers of great interest. The first of these— 
p. 11 to p. 347-—is devoted to an annotated list of 
the birds of New Jersey by Witmer Stone, of 
the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, 
while the remainder of the volume, aside from 
the index and plates, consists of notes on “New 
Jersey Fishes, Amphibians and Reptiles,” by 
Henry W. Fowler, also of the Academy of 
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. The volume 
is illustrated by no less than eighty-four plates, 
and the frontispiece is a portrait of Silas R. 
Morse, the curator of the museum. 
The fore word of Mr. Stone’s interesting list 
emphasizes the services which birds perform for 
man, pointing out that a single chickadee in one 
day eats thirty female canker worms, which 
would have laid 5,500 eggs, and that one meadow 
lark in a month devours at least 1,500 grass¬ 
hoppers. He calls attention to the different ways 
in which civilized man acts against nature and 
bird life, sometimes with intention, sometimes 
without any thought of nature and her creat¬ 
ures. Many birds are slaughtered for millinery 
purposes or are shot for sport. But other—and 
greater—destruction may be caused by the clear¬ 
ing of land, the draining of swamps, the plow¬ 
ing up of land, the putting up of buildings 
where once were brushy fields or tangled 
thickets, or the building of summer resorts, or 
business wharves, where once the sandpipers 
ran and the wild ducks dived. Other hostile in¬ 
fluences are the introduction of foreign birds 
#md the collecting of bird skins and eggs by 
ignorant persons—which often means small boys. 
To young bird students a useful direct address 
is made signed by a number of our best orni¬ 
thologists. It expresses encouragement for the 
young student in his work, but advises him how 
to go about making the most of his studies with 
the least possible harm to the birds. The value 
of birds is pointed out, some useful publica¬ 
tions on this subject are enumerated, and the 
establishment of a bird day is advocated. 
Of most birds it is true that they are wan¬ 
derers, though there are not a few which appear 
to remain permanently in the districts which 
they inhabit. For the most part, however, the 
birds move southward in autumn and north¬ 
ward again in spring, and it may very well be 
true that while in certain sections a given bird 
—as the robin—is present winter and summer 
alike, the birds that spend the winter there have 
come from the north to take the place of birds 
bred in that locality, which themselves have 
gone hundreds of miles to the southward. Be¬ 
sides the residents and those who come to spend 
the summer, there are also many birds which 
appear only in winter, many others which 
merely pass by on their migrations without 
stopping long, and others still which occur as 
irregular and accidental visitors from the north 
or the south. Lists of these are given in Mr. 
Stone’s introduction, and he also mentions those 
birds once abundant and now probably extinct. 
Among these are the wild turkey, pinnated 
grouse or heath hen, whooping crane, passenger 
pigeon and Eskimo curlew. Of the heath hen, 
once so abundant in New Jersey, Turnbull in 
1869 seems to have given the last record when 
he says: “Within the last year or two it has 
been found in the Jersey plains.” Nothing, we 
believe, has been heard of it since then. The 
“plains” comprise an extensive sandy area, ex¬ 
tending westward from Barnegat and Tucker- 
town, covered with low stunted oaks and pines. 
Mr. Stone quotes a writer in Doughty’s “Cabi¬ 
net of Natural History” in 1832, who says: 
“The barrens of Gloucester and other counties 
of this State have been the most celebrated 
grounds east of the Allegheny, for this chief 
of our feathered game. In former years they 
were in great abundance on these barren grounds, 
which were then visited by old and scientii 
sportsmen who regarded the laws of shootin 
But lately, through great persecution by tho 
who have no claims to the principles which co : 
stitute sportsmen and who visit these ground 
months before the season commences by la 
and while the birds are in an unfledged stal 
the grouse are driven from this favorite aboc 
Year after year has this unhallowed persec 
tion of the grouse been carried on, until ti 
species has been almost exterminated from tl 
State.” 
The list is preceded by a general key for tf 
identification of New Jersey birds, which lea 
us up either to the order, the family or in son 
cases the sub-family. The key seems simple ai 
clear. Each ordinal group is preceded by a k 
which gives very briefly certain characters 
the genera within the order, and the book shob 
thus be a great help to the young student, t 
sides being very useful to sportsmen general 
who live anywhere in the middle district of t! 
east, and who are willing to take a little trout 
to study the birds. 
Of accidental stragglers from Europe, N< 
Jersey has given us the European widgeon, t 
green-winged teal, corncrake, curlew, sandpip' 
woodcock and ruff. A number of unexpect 
birds have been found here from the west, a; 
as would naturally be expected from the ge 
graphical situation of the State, a large numt 
from the South. 
The illustrations are reproductions from Aud 
bon and Wilson, and from drawings by Bru 
Horfall, made for the National Association 
Audubon Societies; for, as might be expect* 1 
Mr. Stone has received the earnest co-operati 
of this association as well as the help of ma 
naturalists. 
There is much of interest in the pages devot 
to fishes, amphibians and reptiles, and ma 
anglers along the coast will read with delig 
Mr. Fowler’s notes on the fishes of New Jersi 
though many of those treated of are not tri 
