Insular Immunity
An island is not so well defended as it seems to be. Happily our prevailing wind is West and South West ; and though we often get the longest spells of fine weather from the East, most of us nurse the belief that the South wind distributes health and the East wind sickness. Migratory birds have a slight preference for a favourable wind ; but even the immigrant butterflies which look as helpless as the sibyl's leaves will face an adverse breeze. All the earlier instances of the foot-and-mouth disease of this autumn happened to coincide with the prevalence of Northerly and Easterly weather. It is open to those who would acquit the birds to offer the suggestion that the malady may be air-borne, but such ques- tions lie with the men of science. A naturalist may only put forward the fact that the coming of the disease followed the coming of innumerable birds and that some of those birds certainly brought with them mud from Continental farms.
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