On the 1st of March, our latitude being now 44° 49ʹ N., and our longitude 228° E., we had one calm day. This was succeeded by a wind from the north, with which I stood to the east close hauled, in order to make the land. According to the charts, it ought not to have been far from us. It was remarkable that we should still be attended with such moderate and mild weather, so far to the northward, and so near the coast of an extensive continent, at this time of the year. The present season either must be uncommon for its mildness, or we can assign no reason why Sir Francis Drake should have met with such severe cold, about this latitude, in the month of June.[31] Viscaino, indeed, who was near the same place in the depth of winter, says little of the cold, and speaks of a ridge of snowy mountains, somewhere on the coast, as a thing rather remarkable.[32] Our seeing so few birds, in comparison of what we met with in the same latitudes to the south of the line, is another singular circumstance which must either proceed from a scarcity of the different sorts, or from a deficiency of places to rest upon. From hence we may conclude, that beyond 40° in the southern hemisphere, the species are much more numerous and the isles where they inhabit also more plentifully scattered about, than any where between the coast of California and Japan, in or near that latitude. During a calm, on the morning of the 2d, some parts of the sea seemed covered with a kind of slime, and some small sea animals were swimming about. The most conspicuous of which were of gelatinous, or _medusa_ kind, almost globular; and another sort smaller, that had a white or shining appearance, and were very numerous. Some of these last were taken up, and put into a glass cup, with some salt water, in which they appeared like small scales, or bits of silver, when at rest, in a prone situation. When they began to swim about, which they did with equal ease, upon their back, sides, or belly, they emitted the brightest colours of the most precious gems, according to their position with respect to the light. Sometimes they appeared quite pellucid, at other times assuming various tints of blue, from a pale sapphirine to a deep violet colour, which were frequently mixed with a ruby, or opaline redness; and glowed with a strength sufficient to illuminate the vessel and water. These colours appeared most vivid when the glass was held to a strong light; and mostly vanished on the subsiding of the animals to the bottom, when they had a brownish cast. But, with candle light, the colour was, chiefly, a beautiful pale green, tinged with a burnished gloss; and, in the dark, it had a faint appearance of glowing fire. They proved to be a new species of _oniscus_, and, from their properties, were, by Mr. Anderson (to whom we owe this account of them), called _oniscus fulgens_; being probably an animal which has a share in producing some sorts of that lucid appearance, often observed near ships