WINTER BIRDS IN A CITY PARK. 



367 



many other familiar warm-weather friends liave also jonrneyed 

 southward. 



The bare trees and the groiind l>n>\vii with fallen leaves have to 

 some a bleak and dreary look, l)iit this is because a wrong impres- 

 sion has gone abroad 

 concerning them. 

 Nature in winter is 

 not dead, not even 

 sleeping; she is all 

 the time storing up 

 energy to enable 

 her to gi'eet the re- 

 turning sun in her 

 very best dress. If 

 you will look care- 

 fully at the bare 

 limbs and branches 

 of the trees and 

 bushes, you will see 

 the little buds that 

 are slowly but sure- 

 ly swelling up with 

 the pride of young, 

 active, vigorous life, 

 only waiting, with 

 the great patience 

 of Nature, for the 

 proper and suitable 

 time to break away 

 their part in the new year. 



Some of the pleasantest days I have ever known in the open 

 have been spent in the winter woods, when the snow was on the 

 ground and everything seemed still and unfamiliar. Every little 

 sound is accented on a cold day, and the creaking of a swaying 

 limb or the note of a bird comes to you with almost startling dis- 

 tinctness. Somehow you feel on such days that you are more a 

 part of the things about you than in the full flush of summer. It 

 is like meeting people stripped of all the artificial distinctions of 

 clothes and position. 



There is something fine in the way the trees stand up in win- 

 ter; no one can fail to understand what is meant by the "sturdy 

 oak." They seem to feel pretty much as you do, and show a 

 spirit of vigorous resistance and ^power to enjoy and cope wath the 

 worst that Jack Frost can bring, and the bright sun sends the sap 



Getting Acquainted. 



from their winter retirement and take up 



