78 HILLSIDE, ROCK, AND DALE 



place in Nature. There is a mystery more great 

 in the coming on, and the passing of the seasons, 

 more wonderful than philosophy ever yet fathomed 

 or properly interpreted. But one by one Nature is 

 disclosing her hidden secrets to those who would 

 know them, and naturalists who choose to study 

 Nature in her own world will see and find out more 

 of these mysteries than mere students of the museum 

 or the study. Ordinary observers look upon trees 

 and flowers and admire them ; they listen to the 

 music of birds and are fascinated ; the gambols 

 of the rabbits, or the playing of squirrels in the 

 pines, afford them entertainment, but they little 

 think of the gigantic forces which have been at 

 work to produce all of these scenes and sounds. 

 There is a struggle now commencing all round so 

 powerful that few can realise, or even imagine what 

 it all means. Every tree and shrub which we see 

 around us has grown at the expense of its weaker 

 neighbours ; above and beneath and all around, 

 wherever we fix our eyes, we cannot but notice 

 signs of the struggle in the past and tokens of that 

 just beginning. 



Six weeks have come and passed. I still watch 

 the scenes in Nature's pageant from the woods. 

 Again it is early morning, and the wren is singing. 

 He is perched on the same post from which he did 

 his part in opening the pageant, but what a different 



