ON February 18 this part of Scotland was visited by a furious gale of wind, rain, sleet, and hail. The gale subsided considerably about five o'clock in the afternoon. At eight o'clock the sky was fairly clear, when a black cloud sprang up in the north, and the night became suddenly intensely dark. With the darkness came a tremendous shower of hail. All at once I was startled by a vivid flash of lightning close at hand, but without thunder. At the same instant I found myself enveloped in a sheet of pale flickering white light. It seemed to proceed from every part of my clothes, especially on the side least exposed to the hail, and more particularly and brightly from my arm, shoulder, and head. Though I turned about pretty smartly, and shifted my position, I found it impossible to shake off the flickering flames. When I walked on they continued with me for two or three minutes, disappearing only when the violence of the blast was somewhat diminished. I felt no unusual sensation beyond the stinging of the hail, and no sound except that of the storm. Then and since I have puzzled myself to account for the strange phenomenon, and can only imagine it to have been a peculiar manifestation of St. Elmo's Fire, so well known to sailors during thunderstorms within the Tropics. Some of your readers may, perhaps, be able to give instances of a similar occurrence, unique both in my experience and reading.