Lexington, Mass.
1916.
January 6
(No 7)
[January 6, 1916]

chiefly, perhaps, because the flock included no male bird,
also because its eleven female members looked at times not unlike House
Sparrows & uttered similar calls. For the most part, however, they seemed very admirable to
behold, especially when viewed near at hand in light that
fully revealed not only their gracefully rounded outlines but
also all the more subdued tints and silky sheen of their
trim plumage. Some with decidedly blackish heads were
presumably adult. Others had the sides of their necks just above
the shoulders of the folder wings rather strongly yellowish.
All showed dusky malar stripes and more or less
conspicuous white markings on otherwise black or blackish
wings and tails. Nevertheless, the general effect of their mostly
grayish or pale olivaceous coloring tended to make them inconspicuous at all distances
beyond thirty or forty yards and when they were in the
box elder it harmonized so well with that of the bleached
clusters of winged seed vessels that it served very obviously
to "obliterate" them. Nor were they especially noticeable among