Cambridge
Ther [Thermometer] Friday, Dec. 29, 1916 [December 29, 1916] Wea [Weather] Fine
20 [degrees], 26 [degrees] More Camb. Reg bird notes from Lovell & Walcott.

Clear & cold with keen N.W. [northwest] wind.
  Garden birds: A Chickadee, a female Junco (seen
at sunset in rhododendron within a yard of my
study window), a Peabody bird (heard chirping
just before the Junco was seen & apparently in the
same bush), half a dozen or more House Sparrows.
  My diary record for yesterday should have
mentioned that Lovell Thompson & Charles F.
Walcott called at 3 P.M. to tell me that they
had seen two [female] or juv. [juvenile] [male] Hooded Mergansers in
Spy Pond on Dec. 2 [December 2, 1916] & one on the 8th [December 8, 1916]; also
two Rusty Blackbird [Rusty Blackbirds], with very "rusty" backs,
feeding on the ground among bushes at the edge
of Beaver Brook where it leaves Rock Meadow,
on December 23 [December 23, 1916] and a bevy of about 18
Quail in that same locality on Dec. 26 [December 26, 1916].
They seem truthful lads whose accuracy of 
statement concerning their observations I
have no inclination to doubt.
  Spent day in Museum writing letters
& posting up bird notes in various
record book [books]. C.[Caroline Brewster] confined to her room
by a cold & E.R.S. [Elizabeth R. Simmons] at her Bee all the
evening which I passed alone in my "den".

Cambridge.
Ther [Thermometer] Saturday, Dec. 30, 1916 [December 30, 1916] Wea [Weather]
16 [degrees] Fine

Clear & cold with brisk N.W. [northwest] wind.

  Garden birds. A Chickadee eating
suet; a White-throated Sparrow, flitting
at sunset, with lisping chirping
(similar to that of so many other
Sparrows), through the rhododendrons
just by my study window, half a 
dozen or more House Sparrows seeking
bread in the clothes yard; a [male]
Flicker perched in the Seckel pear
tree near where its trunk has recently
been stripped of bark doubtless by a 
Flicker & probably by this identical
bird although his guilt in the matter
cannot be more than assumed at
present. Nor is the trunk likely to
be injured further by him or any other
for I had Percy envelope [envelop] it in wire
mosquito netting this afternoon.
  Spent day in Museum compiling
& elaborating field notes made at
Concord during the autumn.
C. [Caroline Brewster] better of her cold. She came down 
stairs this evening & listened to Victrola music.