242 
NATURE’S DREAMS 
The mystery of unceasing life and growth is all 
about, as persistent on the bleak plain and in the 
naked woods of winter as in the season of crowding 
foliage and many-tinted flowers* As if to more loudly 
proclaim the all-pervading activity of winter, there 
is a distressing commotion among the Chickadees 
and Juncoes in the near Hemlocks. The Kinglets, 
too, in the naked top of an Elm, are suddenly alarmed. 
They cannot fear the Black Squirrel bounding over 
the snow to shelter among the Spruces. The Hawk 
circling away overhead does not account for their 
trepidation. There is the enemy, a skulking but 
determined and wicked-eyed Shrike, conspicuous 
in black and white, flapping his course under the 
lower branches and looking for his prey among the 
hardy feathered inhabitants of the winter woods. 
With perpetual life and growth comes its inseparable 
complement, perpetual destruction. 
