a gentle gale. It is applied in a more restricted sense to a shifting wind that blows from sea or land during certain hours of the day or night. It is common in Africa and some parts of the East and West Indies. Breezes differ from easterly trade-winds, insomuch as the former are diurnal, or have their periods each day, whilst the latter are annual, and blow at a distance from land. The sea breezes prevail by day, and the land breezes by night, so that they remain as constant as the seasons of the year, or the course of the sun, on which they seem to depend, although they come on sooner or later, stronger or weaker, in some places than in others, and vary according to latitude and other circumstances.