PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 323 



city of whales. The 80th degree, I believe, is rather CH ^ P * 

 a favourite one with them. v -^y— ^ 



Ten days after our departure from Oneehow we iS 

 lost the trade wind in latitude 30° N. and longitude 

 195° W. ; it had been variable before this, but had 

 not fairly deserted us : its failure was of little con- 

 sequence, as in three days afterwards we were far 

 enough to the westward to ensure the remainder of 

 the passage; and indeed from the winds which 

 ensued, a course might as well have been shaped for 

 Kamschatka on the day we lost the wind. 



On the 3d of June, the day after leaving Oneehow, 

 in latitude 25° N. and longitude 163° 15 W., we saw 

 large flocks of tern and noddies, and a few gannets 

 and tropic birds, also boneta, and shoals of flying- 

 fish ; and on the 5th, in latitude 28° 10' N. and lon- 

 gitude 172° 20 W. s we had similar indications of the 

 proximity of land. Though such appearances are 

 by no means infallible, yet as so many coral islands 

 have recently been discovered to the W. N. W. of 

 the Sandwich Islands, ships in passing these places 

 should not be regardless of them. On this day we 

 observed an albatross (diomedia exulans), the first 

 we had seen since quitting the coast of Chili. It is 

 remarkable that Captain King in his passage to 

 Kamschatka first met these birds within thirty miles 

 of the same spot. We noticed about this time a 

 change in the colour of the wings of the flying-fish, 

 and on one of the species being caught it was found 

 to differ from the common exoccetus volitans. We 

 continued to see these fish occasionally as far as 30° 

 N., about which time the tern also quitted us. In 

 33° N. we first met the birds of the northern re- 

 gions, the procellaria pujfinus, but it was not until 



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