Cambridge.
Ther [Thermometer] Thursday, Dec. 16, 1915 [December 16, 1915] Wea [Weather]
Fine
  Clear & just seasonably cool
with light northerly wind. Pretty
much everything out-of-doors still
thinly encrusted with snow or ice.
  In Garden: 2 Chickadees at suet,
a Canada Nuthatch heard whining,
a screaming Jay, several House Sparrows
and a White-throated Sparrow
certainly different individually 
from the one seen here before of
late for that was dull & this
decidedly high, plumaged.
  Spent day in Museum struggling
with Umbagog preface & advancing
it little if at all. It is rather
discouraging to thus begin the
winter's but perhaps I shall
do better after "settling into
the harness again if at all events
it is best to hope so.  
  Gilbert [Robert A. Gilbert] motored C. [Caroline Brewster] & E.R.S. [Elizabeth R. Simmons] in
town this forenoon for Christmas shopping
Harry & Alice Bartlett called this evening.

Cambridge.
Ther [Thermometer] Dec. 17, 1915 [December 17, 1915] Wea [Weather]
Stormy
Dark cloudy with steady, fine rain falling
all afternoon and evening, freezing as it
struck and coating everything most
dangerously with wet glare ice. 
  In Garden: a Chickadee and several
House Sparrows the only birds noted.
I have not once seen any of the Sparrows
touch the suet although they approach
it closely and regard it wistfully.
The Chickadees and Nuthatches partake
of it daily or even hourly and in
all weathers yet this has not happened
during the past two winters if I
remember aright. Perhaps the resumption
of the habit of resorting to it regularly
in our Garden is due to its general
absence elsewhere - of which I have
no present evidence, however.
  Working all day in Museum, mostly
on letters through forenoon, afterwards
on my Preface, which progressed a little.
E.R.S. [Elizabeth R. Simmons] went to her Bee this morning. C. [Caroline Brewster]
& I had a long Victrola concert in hall.