SOME STRANGE NESTS 183 



The so-called edible-nest swallows which 

 are really swifts have long been celebrated 

 for building perhaps the strangest nests of all, 

 nests that are at any rate the only ones used 

 for human food ! Every one has heard of the 

 " bird's nest soup " which is so well known as 

 a Chinese delicacy ; and a great delicacy it is, 

 for first-quality nests sell in China for about 

 their weight in silver. It is thus a special 

 treat, like turtle soup in England, and the 

 average poor Chinaman, no doubt, knows no 

 more about its taste than an Englishman does. 

 The taste is not much, if it comes to that, 

 for the nests, which are shaped like half- 

 saucers, and stuck to the rock by the flat 

 side, are of a substance much like isinglass and 

 just as tasteless, so that the chief point of the 

 soup is the flavouring that is added and the 

 expense ! 



How the birds got the stuff to make these 

 queer nests with was long a great puzzle ; 

 they build in caves by the seashore in the 

 East Indies, and it used to be thought that 

 they got the material from the sea, in the shape 

 of floating fish-spawn or sea-weed, which they 

 prepared somehow. It is now known that 



