WEST WINDS BLIGHTING. 179 
insects stored under the pebbles. ‘These severe 
frost-bringing east winds are however generally of 
short duration, and hence, the rustic assures us on 
finding the moor hills appear very close to him, 
there will be frost followed directly by a thaw 
or wet. 
Although the most prevalent winds of the South 
of Devon are those from the south-west, which are 
according to the season of the year mild, and _ pro- 
ductive ofamoist atmosphere, we yet have occasional 
periods in which the wind continues to blow for 
days together from due west, or due south, and 
other times in which it proceeds from different 
quarters for a still longer space, but most usually 
with occasional shiftings.* But of the whole of 
these, there is no one more remarkable at times in 
its effects than that from the west. Westerly winds 
usually assail us in spring and autumn, they are 
purely blighting winds. LEarly in the October 
of 1836, these blasts did extraordinary damage ; in 
*Taking Europe altogether, westerly winds are said to be the 
most common. It often happens in South Devon, that towards 
autumn and winter the wind veers round from east or north-east 
to west or south-west in a very short space of time, the thermo- 
meter immediately rising many degrees from the mild atmosphere 
thus brought to us from the sea. Simultaneously with this rise of 
temperature, we often experience also severe gales of wind on 
these occasions, with partial blight of many trees and shrubs, and 
especially the laurel, which seems remarkably sensitive to these 
sea breezes. There seems altogether a law in meteorology by 
which extremes of temperature are avoided. After the occurrence 
of an atmosphere acquired either on the one hand from the sea, or 
on the other from the cold district of Dartmoor, there is a sudden 
revulsion in the air, and an atmosphere from a contrary quarter 
is more or less suddenly poured in to the intermediate tract or 
South Hams. In the same way, some author has remarked that 
in his neighbourhood gales of wind from a cold quarter invaria- 
bly succeeded to thaws during winter. During the season in 
x 2 
