of June.  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.[1] 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 deg. 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.

[Footnote 1:  See Torquemada’s Narrative of Viscaino’s Expedition in 1602 and 1603, in the second volume of Vanegas’s History of California, English translation, from p. 229 to p. 308.—­D.]

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 the 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 backs, 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 at sea in the night.  On the same day two large birds settled on the water, near the ship.  One of these was the procellaria maxima (the quebrantahuessos), and the other, which was little more than half the size, seemed to be of the albatross kind.  The upper part of the wings, and tip of the tail, were black, with the rest white; the bill yellowish; upon the whole not unlike the sea-gull, though larger.