1857.] PLANTS OF SNOWDON. 147 



whole Snowdon district. We accordingly directed our steps 

 slowly towards the point at which he had ascended^ and had 

 not gone far before we found our suspicions were correct ; — we 

 were upon the productive sandstone formation, and had already 

 made one or two " finds " when he came down to us with a mag- 

 nificent specimen of Aspidium Lonchitis in his hands, which he had 

 just obtained from the heights above ; and on our accosting him 

 he immediately volunteered to show us where the Woodsia was 

 to be found. This was so tempting an ofier, that we agreed to 

 accompany him over the ridge to Cwm Glas, where he said we 

 should find some plants, those on Clogwyn-y-Garnedd (the preci- 

 pices he had just been on) having been cut off, according to his 

 account, by the past night's frost, which I felt at the time 

 strongly inclined to doubt, inasmuch as it was only the first 

 frost of the season, and the time of year was not later than Sep- 

 tember 2nd. Before crossing over the valley, however, he showed 

 us a very small plant of what he declared to be Woodsia hyper- 

 borea, but for the genuineness of which I could not venture to 

 vouch, as all the mature fronds had been stripped off for the 

 gratification of some greedy fern-hunters. The plant itself was 

 completely hidden under a piece of rock, so that we had before 

 walked almost over it ; and Williams informed us, with a grin, that 

 it was his usual practice either thus to hide up all the plants of 

 Woodsia he could find, or to transplant them when growing in too 

 exposed a situation, so as to prevent all possibility of their being 

 detected. Another piece of information which he volunteered 

 with equal satisfaction to himself was, that he was accustomed 

 to give wrong habitats when applied to by Newman and other 

 writers on Ferns for the localities of rare species : thus, he told 

 us, he had informed Mr. Newman that Moel Lichog was a ha- 

 bitat for Asplenium septentrionale, when in fact Moel Lichog was 

 miles distant from any known locality of the plant in question. 

 In fact it was very evident that he delighted in "taking in^' each 

 successive visitor who trusted himself to his tender mercies, and 

 then amused himself by chuckling over it to the next comer, 

 who of course received the unpleasant impression that he was 

 being treated in a similar way at that very moment. However, 

 we retraced our steps to the head of the upper lake, and then 

 commenced ascending the precipices on the north-east side of 

 Cwm Dyll, in the direction of the peak or ridge called Crib-y- 



