Though some runners are content merely to enjoy the actual practice of Ski-ing with all the difficulties to be overcome and the various turns to be perfected, the greater proportion probably ski mainly on account of the exhilaration obtained, the freedom enjoyed, and the wonderful beauty of the places reached.

The amazing thing is that Skis were not used sooner among the Alps. They have already in less than thirty years entirely altered the life of the young people in far-away villages, who used to be practically shut up during the winter months, but who can now ski from one place to another on Sundays and holidays, enjoying the companionship of their friends and widening their outlook by mixing with strangers. This will probably have a very good effect on the population of the High Alps, who will be less inclined to leave their homes in order to get away from the monotony of the long winters. So much is this appreciated that Ski-ing is now part of the school curriculum in some districts, often taking the place of gymnastics during the winter.

It is amusing to watch the classes of children out on the Nursery slopes with their teachers. While we foreign women Ski-runners are provided with elaborate costumes, including breeches or trousers, the little Swiss girls ski in frocks and cotton pinafores without cap or hat, and often without gloves. Led by their teacher they wearily climb up the slopes, and then comes the mad career home to the midday meal. Twenty or thirty little girls all dashing down together practising turns as they go, or making as straight down as they dare in their effort to outpace their rivals.

The boys carry the sport still further and most local Ski-jumping competitions start with a demonstration by the boys, who often do not look more than 10 or 12 years old, and who go over the big jump as straight as their elders and usually a good deal more gaily, as they have not begun to appreciate the dangers. The smaller boys line the sides of the jump and pour out at the word of the judge on to the steep landing-slope like a lot of little goblins, jumping on their Skis horizontally to flatten away any track or hole made by a jumper who has failed to jump perfectly. Little chaps of seven or eight run through the woods on these occasions, swanking their turns through the trees and putting most grown-up runners to shame by their nimbleness. At Pontresina one winter I was much amused by one of these small children wearing a British third-class test badge which he must have picked up. I asked him where he got it, but he hurried away for fear I would claim it, and his Christianias through the big trees made me very envious.

Many of the children ski to school and back, getting endless practice all through the winter months.

May I here appeal to British runners who may have old Skis, even broken ones to throw away, to offer them to the local branch of the Swiss Ski Club as there is an organization which mends them or cuts them down for lending or giving to the school children, who are too poor to provide themselves with Skis.

When the beginner has learnt the elements of straight running and turns and begins to go off among the mountains the real interest of Ski-ing is begun, with the slow climb up in single file, first of all through woods and then out on to the open slopes. This is usually a silent game as breath is needed for the climb, and it is dull work keeping up a conversation with the back ahead. Sometimes, as one inadvertently steps on the Skis ahead, a gruff word is flung back and the trespasser is wise who stops, pretending to attend to his binding, or to look at the view—the view is usually worth looking at, too, as there is usually something to see. If it is not a distant view of the Great Alps or of the valley below, it is of trees or rocks, which, if examined carefully, usually show some sign of life. I remember being snubbed by an ardent Ski-er because I ventured to ask "What are those black birds?" "Who wants to know about birds when he is ski-ing?" was the answer. I did want to know, and I found out that they were Alpine choughs and I still want to know when I see the inhabitants of the mountains or their tracks.

Most of the wild animals use old Ski tracks as highways now, even finding it worth while to follow the zigzag of an uphill traverse. Foxes, hares and roe deer all use them, the roe deers' feet showing so much tinier than the chamois, who leaves a deep rough track as they usually run in each other's footsteps. The hare's track when running is two holes abreast and then two single ones. The fox runs rather like a dog. The squirrel hops two feet at a time, often leaving a slight ruffle on the snow as he swishes his tail. Among the cembra trees in the Engadine the snow may be sprinkled with the nuts out of the cones. They are delicious eating, being very like the Italian stone pine nut, or pinelli, and they attract the squirrels as much as they do the nutcracker bird.

Martens and pole cats leave distinct footmarks. Weasels, also, and these are easily recognized as they usually start from a hole under a bush or a rock. One day when a party of us were silently traversing a slope above MÜrren a tiny brown ball came rolling down, which, when picked up, proved to be the warm dead body of a mouse. Looking up we saw a weasel peering out of his hole anxious as to the fate of his dinner. A mouse's track also usually starts from a tiny hole and the two feet go abreast, while the tail leaves a line all the way.

We nearly always see chamois and roe deer when ski-ing in the woods at Pontresina as it is a protected area and they are not shot and therefore become very tame. The chamois are driven down into the woods in search of the lichen which hangs like a beard from the branches of the cembra trees. On Muottas Celerina this winter we saw four chamois below us in the wood. Without a word our guide, Caspar Gras, dashed down the slope after them and very nearly caught one round the neck, as they were surprised, and knowing there was a precipice beyond the scrub below them, they could not make up their minds which way to go.

The roe deer scrape away the snow below the trees in search of alpenrose or bear berry leaves or dry blades of grass. They suffer more than the chamois after a heavy snowfall because they are not so strong and cannot scamper through it. At the beginning of this season, Klosters had a snowfall of some two metres and the roe deer were driven down to the villages where the peasants fed them in stables till the weather improved. Four were caught on the railway, having got on to the line at a crossing and being unable to spring out over the high banks of snow.

Ibex are being let loose in order to re-establish them where they were exterminated a few years ago. They can usually be seen through the telescope at Bernina Hauser above Pontresina, and also opposite MÜrren. The ibex, or steinbock, is used as the Coat of Arms of the Canton of GraubÜnden, and is familiar to Ski runners as the badge of the local Ski Club of Zuoz in the Engadine.

After some controversy eagles are being encouraged to increase, having been almost exterminated. We saw a beauty sailing over the Muottas Muraigl Valley one day. There is even talk of trying to get bear back, but the peasants obstruct this as they were so destructive to sheep. As a child at Davos I saw three bears brought in dead by hunters, and remember with pride, mixed with disgust, tasting a bear's paw. A peasant told me of how as a boy he looked after the village sheep near the Silvretta Glacier, and of a bear who used to come and kill a sheep and then bury it in the ice for future eating.

Ski runners shudder at the idea of meeting a bear while on a run, but they need not worry as the bears roll up and sleep through the winter so that unless the Ski-er took an unusually heavy fall into the bear's hole, he would be safe enough on the surface. Besides which it is said that a bear cannot traverse down a slope, so that the Ski-er could easily get away unless the bear rolled to the bottom, and then ran along and waited for him. As there are no bears in Switzerland now, perhaps it is waste of time to start a controversy about the best turn with which to circumvent a bear. Cows are much more dangerous. I was pursued down the village street at Pontresina by a playful cow, who had been taken to the pump to drink. She put down her head and stuck up her tail and I wasted no time in pushing away from her.

Another animal which hibernates through the winter is the marmot, and I often think of them sound asleep under the snow as I pass along the slopes of some high valley. They are said to have breathing holes, but I have never seen them, unless this was the explanation of some holes which puzzled me on the Schiltgrat above MÜrren. I was traversing uphill a long way ahead of my party and noticed some isolated holes in the snow, very like Ski stick holes, but with no Ski tracks near. As I passed a grey hen flew out of one of the holes, and, looking back, I saw several black cocks and grey hens flying away. It is more likely that they had made their own holes to shelter in rather than that these were marmot holes.

Ptarmigan often greet one on the higher ridges and sometimes a capercailzie will get up with a noise which is very apt to upset one.

The choughs are persistent followers of a Ski-ing party, flying over one's head and chirruping for lunch. When at last we stop and take our nosebags out of our Rucksacks, they perch on a cliff near and wait till we move on, when they immediately fly down to see what we have left for them. I have seen a paper lunch-bag, which they were unable to tear, absolutely surrounded by a circle of their footmarks, some eight feet in diameter. How they must have worried it and each other in their endeavour to get at the contents.

At MÜrren a pair of ravens also accompany the Ski-ers. They take their perch high up and watch the many luncheon parties, croaking now and then to remind us of their wish to share our slices of beef and sausage. These "packed lunches" are usually so plentiful that the choughs and the ravens get a goodly feed. The tidy Ski-er who buries all his paper and orange peel and other debris will often find next day that the whole thing has been dug up by a fox.

At many of the Alpine huts, the snow-finch has adopted the habits of the sparrow and is often so tame that he will almost take crumbs from one's hand.

Another bird I love among the Alps is the dipper or water ouzel. Ski-ing along the snow banks of the rivers, I have often watched him hop down into the water and run along the bottom picking up whatever his food is among the pebbles.

Surely most Ski runners can spare time to watch all these little people, whose rights to the snow fields are even greater than their own.

Very little vegetation shows in winter, but it is wonderful what a lot one can find if one looks carefully and it certainly makes Ski-ing more interesting to me if I can recognize the trees, plants and seeds.

A very fair estimate can be made of the different heights by noticing what grows.

Corn stops at 2,000 to 3,000 feet, though a little rye may be grown up to 5,000 feet in sunny places. Fruit trees and beech trees stop at about 4,000 feet. There is one beech tree above Davos about 5,500 feet above the sea, but it has never succeeded in topping the huge boulder which shelters it from the North. The silver fir is healthy at 4,000 feet, but is seldom found much above that level, while the spruce or fir goes up to 7,000 feet and does best there. Larches seem to thrive best at about 5,000-6,000 feet, but may be seen almost as high as the top of the Bernina Pass on the south side facing Italy. The cembra pine, like a great cedar, is the finest tree in the Alps and does best at 6,000 feet to 7,000 feet. It is also called the Arolla pine, because of the forests near that place. In the Upper Engadine almost all the forests are of cembra and there is one splendid old tree known as the "Giant Tree" near upper tree level on Muottas Celerina. Another group of veterans grows just below the Little Scheidegg on the Grindelwald side. Many of these trees are said to be 600 or 700 years old and their wood is much used for panelling in GraubÜnden. It is recognized by the big dark knots. The panels are usually formed of boards reversed so that the knots form a symmetrical pattern. Larch is also used and is very red, while sycamore goes to the making of tables and chairs in the BÜndner StÜbli. Good examples of the modern use of these woods may be seen in the hotels, Vereina and Silvretta, at Klosters, while the museum at Zurich contains beautiful old panelled rooms from different districts.

Creeping down steep avalanche slopes above 5,000 feet we find Pinus montana, whose long branches form a tangle in which to catch one's Ski tips. Below 5,000 feet this pine will sometimes grow almost upright but never attains much height. Alder may also be a trap for Skis on an avalanche slope where it creeps downhill and provides a very slippery surface for the snow. I remember shooting down such a slope about 100 feet when the snow slipped with me in a safe place.

Along the rivers the alder grows into quite a fine tree, and if its catkins be picked at Christmas and are brought into the warm house, they soon blossom out and spread their green pollen over everything. Rather a nice way of bringing a reminder of Spring into one's Winter holiday.

Birch and mountain ash grow happily up to 6,000 feet on sheltered slopes but after 6,000 feet there are no deciduous trees, except the tiny creeping willows buried deep under the snow.

Juniper is the most ubiquitous shrub to be found, it seems to me. You get its various types at sea level in Italy and on the top of mountains up to 8,000 feet when it pokes up through the snow beside the Alpine Rose or Rhododendron ferrugineum.

On the top of ridges when the snow is blown away, all sorts of treasures may be recognized. The creeping azalea with its wee evergreen leaves, which no one, thinking of the garden azaleas at home, would recognize as belonging to the same family. Little primulas and saxifrages sheltering in cracks in the rocks, with nothing but bunches of brown leaves to show them up. Polygula Chamaebuxis or Bastard Box almost always in flower on a sunny patch even in midwinter. On the lower slopes, gentians or anemone plants with their buds waiting to open when the soft wind or rain of Spring calls to them. Erica carnea with its whitish buds waiting for Spring to colour them, one of the earliest of the flowers. Or the seeds of Gentiana lutea or asclepedia or purpurea and of Aconite or Monkshood on their strong stems standing high above the snow.

One winter when at 4,000 feet we had no snow at Christmas, we went flower hunting instead of Ski-ing, and found thirty different sorts of flowers out. But this was exceptional and by no means satisfying to the Ski runner, who has come out for the sport he loves and not on botany intent.

Later, when the snow begins to melt on South slopes in March, the mass of purple and white crocuses open to the sun; nothing in the whole world can equal the mass of these crocuses. They push up as the miracle of Spring, impatiently thrusting through the snow, melting holes for themselves. The soldanellas do the same, but not till late in March, and with them come gentians and the whole glory of the Alpine Spring has begun. By this time the Ski-er has to oil and put away his Skis or climb to the glaciers and higher snow fields. A wonderful experience alternating between Spring and Winter as he changes his levels.