6 Massachusetts Audubon Society 



was formed which remained there for a few weeks before it decreased ma- 

 terially in size. Migratory solitary sandpipers soon found it and haunted 

 its grassy shores day after day. On September 16th as many as twelve or 

 fifteen or these birds were seen there, though the pond had then dwindled 

 to only about half an acre. It is, of course, very unusual to find so many 

 solitary sandpipers in so small a space. Though the company was large, 

 each bird retained his solitary habits and fed and flitted along the shares 

 apparently regardless of his neighbors. 



BIRD PICTURES The Boston Evening Transcript has the following to 

 say of the bird pictures painted by R. A. Quimby, 

 some of which are on view at the office of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. 

 Others are on exhibition for an indefinite time at the Boston City Club. 



Mr. R. A. Quimby, civil engineer and landscape architect, has an inter- 

 esting hobby aside from his professional work — the painting of pictures of 

 birds. He has devoted himself to the study of birds of all kinds from his 

 youthful days to the present time, and paints them in watercolors and in oils, 

 always making his studies directly from life. His series of watercolor studies 

 of ducks of the innumerable different kinds that abound in this part of 

 America is quite remarkable. Their plumage, with its textures and colors, 

 he renders with great success; and their movements, the characteristic action 

 of the birds, in flight, in walking, in swimming and in the incessant search 

 for food, are no less noteworthy for faithfulness and realism. Mr. Quimby 

 is also a landscape painter in his leisure moments, and he has made a large 

 number of smallish panels in the vicinity of his home in Dorchester which 

 are many of them excellent pictures, without any trace of the " 'prentice 

 hand." Mr. Quimby's office is in the Exchange Building, State Street. 



BIRD LIFE The following interesting account of the birds of 



ON "THE the Balkans comes from a British soldier serving 



EAST FRONT" in the trenches. It refers particularly to the region 



about Salonika. 



"What a paradise for the student of natural history is this apparently 

 so desolate expanse of plain and mountain, but especially for the observer 

 of birds! Every change in the wind brings us the trumpeting of vast hordes 

 of grey lag-geese echeloning in flight against the morning sky. The variety 

 of wild fowl approaches the teeming swarms of the Danube marshes, and 

 but for the ceaseless depredations of the numerous eagles, buzzards, falcons 

 and harriers, observation would yield even better results. 



"Mallard, widgeon (slightly larger and darker than the British 

 species), golden-eye, teal, pochard, and tree-duck are common, also two ducks 

 which I cannot identify. Size slightly less than the shoveller, ruddy brown. 



