A Plea for Small Birds. 579 



the haziness which often attends the east wind in this country, 

 and which sometimes continues during several days.' And when 

 I mention that the blight on the rose-tree, on the gooseberry, the 

 apple, the larch, the beech, the oak, the lime, the hop, the bean, 

 and other plants or trees, does not consist of the same species of 

 insect which infests them all, but that the several trees and 

 plants have each their own particular blight, peculiar to them- 

 selves, it is manifest to every thinking mind that it is beyond 

 the bounds of possibility that the east wind should, with discrim- 

 inating exactness, bear each species of blight to its own individual 

 tree or plant. The blight, then, I make bold to assert, does not 

 come on the wings of the east wind. Let us get rid of that error 

 first. 



In one sense, however, ' blight ' may be said to come with the 

 east wind ; in the same way that grass may be said to come with 

 the genial south-west wind in the spring. Just then as nobody 

 of course supposes that grass is actually borne along to us by 

 the balmy breezes of May, but everybody understands that the 

 especial state of the atmosphere which fosters the growth of the 

 young herbage prevails, and has its effect on the plants : so pre- 

 cisely in the same manner the east wind harsh and disagreeable 

 though it is to many animals according to the old proverb, 



' When the wind is in the east 

 "Tis neither good for man nor beast ' 



exactly suits the requirements' of the ' blight ' of various 

 species : and on the principle that ' 'tis an ill wind that blows 

 nobody good,' the east wind, so detested by many, presents just 

 that state of atmosphere best suited to the development of all 

 kinds of blights, so that those pests of our gardens and fields 

 flourish when all else is drooping under the pernicious blasts 

 of the much-dreaded east wind. 



It is time now to inquire What is blight 1 and I reply that it is 

 in every case an insect, especially adapted for the particular tree 

 or shrub or plant on which it is found, and whose proper name, by 

 which it is known to entomologists, is Apkis. It belongs to the 

 large order of Hemiptera, and the suborder Homoptera, which 



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