In the Codex Canadensis by Louis Nicolas (1634–post 1700), a document of the people, plants, and animals of New France, one of the highlights is a single page that opens the section on birds. Here, the seventeenth-century Jesuit missionary designates most of the birds by colour and classifies them by habitat and size: “yellow bird” (number 1), “red finch” (2), “red and black finch” (3), and “royal blue bird” (4), though number 6 has a longer caption: “American sparrow, whose plumage is quite varied. In the winter it is white; in other seasons it is grey mixed with other colours.” It is one of the few pages on which the beautifully marked quill-and-ink drawings are enhanced with watercolour (or perhaps tempera).