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far as is known, a single living passenger pigeon in existence. It seems 

 probable that, with the death, within the last decade, of the single 

 specimen in the Cincinnati zoological park, the species became extinct. 

 They were hunted during the breeding season, just before the squabs 

 were able to fly; men with their families, in wagons and other vehicles, 

 came for miles to the woods where the nests were built to collect the 

 young birds which were wonderfully fat. Trees were felled in such 

 a way as to bring down others in their fall, and each tree was loaded 

 with nests and young. The birds were packed in boxes, and barrels 

 and shipped to the larger cities by the carload, sometimes spoiling 

 on the way and having to be thrown out. It was this wholesale 

 slaughter that totally exterminated a fine race of birds. 



Another more unusual article of diet, derived from birds, is the edible 

 bird's nest, especially esteemed by the wealthy Chinese, some of whom 

 ascribe to it valuable tonic properties which it probably does not have. 

 As is generally known these nests are built by swift-like birds (genus 

 Collocalia) of the Orient in rocky caverns, usually along the sea, espe- 

 cially in the regions north of Borneo. The nest is of about the size 

 and shape of that of the common chimney swift but consists of a more 

 or less pure network of dried secretion of the salivary glands, looking 

 and tasting like unflavored gelatin. The birds collect in the caverns, 

 some of which are of great extent and beauty, in enormous numbers, 

 and the natives here collect the nests by means of ladders and ropes, 

 each man or group of men assuming hunting rights over certain caves 

 and resenting the intrusion of other hunters upon their preserves. 



The nests sell at $12 to $15 or more, per pound. The quality of the 

 nest varies; the "white" or first quality nest consists of pure secretion; 

 this nest being removed, the bird builds another, into which she may 

 introduce some foreign matter to help out the diminished supply of 

 saliva; this foreign matter, of course, detracts from the value of the nest; 

 a third nest will have still more foreign matter, while the fourth maybe 

 so contaminated as to be worthless as food; it is probably this introduc- 

 tion of foreign matter into the nests that has saved the birds from ex- 

 tinction. The annual value of these jiests in some of the small ports 

 of the orient amounts to many thousands of dollars. 



The nests are made into soups, jellies, etc. The author cooked a 

 nest according to the only recipe available and found it very tasteless 



