BIRDS AS FOOD 223 



a half to five inches in length, and their nests are 

 correspondingly small. They nest in great cav- 

 erns, swarming there in hundreds of thousands, 

 and the swish of their rapidly beating wings may be 

 likened to the roar of a gale as it tears through the 

 rigging of a ship. The nests, manufactured from 

 the glutinous saliva of the birds, are attached to 

 the sides of the rocks in the form of small, saucer- 

 like cradles. 



The Chinese prize these nests highly as food, 

 employing them as an ingredient of their famous 

 bird's-nest soup. The nest of the esculent swift- 

 let is the one most used. The bird is a native of 

 Borneo, and the collecting of its nests constitutes 

 there an important industry. More than three 

 and a half million have been exported from that 

 region in a single year. 



Mr. H. Prior, who about thirty years ago visited 

 a cave in Borneo, gives the following description 

 of the methods pursued by the bird-nesters : 



In this cave I saw the nest gatherers at work getting 

 in their crop. A thin rattan ladder was fixed to the end 

 of a long pole and wedged against the rock: two men 

 were on the ladder; one carried a long, four-pronged 

 spear, a lighted candle being fixed to it a few inches 

 below the prongs. A slight twist detaches the nest un- 

 broken from the rock ; the spear is then withdrawn until 

 the head is within the reach of the second man, who takes 

 the nest off the prongs and places it in a pouch carried 

 at the waist. The nests of best quality are bound up 



