248 Poachers and Poaching. 



becoming exhausted, both died in it. Mean- 

 while 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 shep- 

 herds 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. 



n. 



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 



