EDIBLE SWALLOW NESTS. 2?3 



which either produce a few, or are carefully concealed 

 by the Javanese, who are unwilling that others should 

 interfere with the profit they make by selling them to 

 the Chinese, who are the chief purchasers. 



The two bird-mountains above alluded to, are insu- 

 lated rocks, hollow within, and pierced with a great 

 number of openings. Many of these openings are so 

 wide, that a person can enter them with ease ; others are 

 attended with more difficulty, and some are too small to 

 admit of intrusion; in these, therefore, the poor little 

 birds are alone safe from robbery. To the walls of 

 these caverns, the birds affix their small nests in regular 

 rows, and so close, that for the most part they adhere 

 together. They construct them at different heights, 

 from fifty to sixty feet, sometimes higher, sometimes 

 lower, according as they find room; and no hole or con- 

 venient place, if dry and clean, is left unoccupied; but, 

 if the walls be in the least wet, or moist, they imme- 

 diately desert them. At day-break, these birds fly 

 abroad from their holes, with a loud fluttering noise, 

 and in the dry season rise so high into the atmosphere 

 in a moment, as they have to seek their food in distant 

 parts, that they are soon out of sight. In the rainy 

 season, on the other hand, they never remove to a great 

 distance from their breeding-places. 



About four in the afternoon they again return, and 

 confine themselves so closely to their holes that none of 

 them are seen any more flying, either out or in, but 

 those which are hatching. They feed upon all sorts of 

 insects which hover over stagnant waters, and these they 

 easily catch, as they can extend their bills to a great 

 width. They prepare their nests from the strongest 

 remains of the food which they use, and not of the 

 scum of the sea, or of sea-plants, as some persons have 

 supposed. They employ two months in preparing their 

 nests; they then lay their eggs, on which they sit for 

 fifteen or sixteen days. As soon as the young are 

 fledged, people begiu to collect their nests, which is 



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