Note (return) — Chapter III · TRANSACTIONS AT OTAHEITE, AND THE SOCIETY ISLANDS; AND PROSECUTION OF THE VOYAGE TO THE COAST OF NORTH AMERICA. (continued 5)

On the 1st of March, our latitude being now 44° 49' N., and our longitude 228° E. we had one calm day. This was succeeded by a wind from the N. with which I stood to the E. 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 carry with us 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. 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° 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.