254 EDIBLE SWALLOW NESTS. 



with the profit they make by selling them to the Chinese, 

 who are the chief purchasers. 



The two hird-mountains ahove alluded to, are insulated 

 rocks, hollow within, and pierced with a great iiumher 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, some- 

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

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

 the walls be in the least wet or moist, they immediately 

 desert them. At daybreak, 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 begin to collect their nests, 

 which is done regularly every four months ; and this forms 

 the harvest of the proprietors of these rocks. 



The business of taking them down from the rocky ledges 

 on which they are placed, is performed by men who have 



