None but those who have been caught in them can form any idea of how terrible are mountain snowstorms. Blinding and bewildering, both men and animals quickly succumb to them. Clouds and banks of snow rush hither and thither in opaque masses; the bitter hail and sleet seem to drive through you. A few moments after the storm breaks every wrap is soaked through; the cold is intense, and a sense of numbness soon takes possession of the entire body. Twice has the writer narrowly escaped death on the northern mountains in winter, deliverance upon one occasion being made barely in time by a search-party of shepherds. Easdale is one of the most picturesque glens among the Cumbrian mountains--"a spot made by nature for herself." With its tarn, its ghyll-contained waterfall, and the fact of its being placed among the splintery peaks of the Borrowdale series, it constitutes a wildly charming spot at every season. Here upon the snow, many years ago, was played a cruel tragedy indeed. A poor hard-working peasant and his wife, named Green, were returning from Langdale late on a wintry evening to their home in Easdale. A terrible storm overtook them on the way, and, becoming exhausted, both died in it. Meanwhile six children were snow-bound in their cottage, where, without help, they remained several days. Fully appreciating their situation, but as yet ignorant of the fate which had befallen their parents, a little lass of nine assumed command and exhibited unusual forethought and care in meeting the home wants of her brothers and sisters. After some days she made her escape from the cottage, and told the hill shepherds how her father and mother had failed to return. A search party was organised; and after some time the bodies were discovered upon the hills at a short distance from each other. II. The wheatears love to haunt the old wall, and in summer are never far from it. In one of its niches they have their pale blue eggs. The wall runs by the side of the fells. The grass on its side is green as the water runs down them from the crags. The wall has a fauna and a flora all its own. In the interstices of the stones spleenwort and the parsley-fern grow; there are mosses and lichens too, and stone-crop. A few grasses wave airily on the scant mound at the top. A foxglove with its purple fingers grows solitary. Two species of shelled snail take harbour in the wall--one of them the beautiful _Helix nemoralis_. There are insects innumerable, bronze and gilded flies, and spiders that hang out their golden webs to the dews of morning. These are festooned from stone to stone, and are productions of the night. Weasels love the old wall, mice hide beneath it, and from it in spring the hedgehog rolls, its spines covered with dead oak leaves. Sometimes the fox, as it leaves its green "benk" in the crags, runs along its summit. Harebells nod at its foot, as do green-smelling brackens. Mountain blackbirds perch upon it, and stonechats and pipits.