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HISTORY OK 



self capable of producing two broods in a year. This happens 

 when the parents come early, when the season is peculiarly mild, 

 and when they begin to pair soon. Sometimes they find a dif- 

 ficulty in rearing even a single nest, particularly when the wea- 

 ther has been severe, or their nests have been robbed in the 

 beginning of the season. By these accidents, this important task 

 is sometimes deferred to the middle of September. 



At the latter end of September they leave us ; and for a few 

 days previous to their departure assemble in vast flocks, on house- 

 tops, as if deliberating on the fatiguing journey that lay before 



and the whole produce going' to one market, and only by one conveyance, 

 the junks, it is probable that the average quantity taken by each vessel is 

 not less than the sum taken from the ports just mentioned. Taking the 

 quantity sent from Batavia as the estimate, we know that tliis is conveyed 

 by 6,300 tons of shipping, and, therefore, the whole quantity will be 1,818 

 piculs, or 242,400 lbs., as the whole quantity of Chinete sliippiug is 30,000 

 tons. Tn the Archipelago, at the prices already quoted, this property is 

 worth 1,263,519 Spanish dollars, or 284,290/. The value of this immense 

 property to the country wliich produces it, rests upon the capricious wauts 

 of a single people. From its nature, it necessarily follows that it is claimed 

 as the e.xclusive property of the sovereign, and everywhere forms a valua- 

 ble branch of his income, or of the revenue of the state. This value, how- 

 ever, is, of course, not equal ; and depends upon the situation and the cir. 

 cumstances connected with the caverns in which the nests are found. Being 

 often in remote and sequestered situations, in a country so lawless, a pro . 

 perty so valuable and exposed is subject to the perpetual depredations of 

 freebooters ; and it not unfrequently happens that an attack upon them is 

 the principal object of the warfare committed by one petty state against an- 

 other. In such situations, the expense of affording them protection is so 

 heavy, that they are necessai"iiy of little value. In situations where the 

 caverns are difheult of access to strangers, and uhere there reigns enough 

 of order and tranquillity to secure them from internal depredation, and tc 

 admit of the nests being obtained without other expense than the simple la- 

 bour of collecting them, the value of the property is very great. The ca- 

 verns of Karang-bolang, in Java, are of this description. These annually 

 afford 0,810 lbs. of nests, which are worth, at the Batavia prices of 3,200, 

 2,500, and 1,200 Spanish dollars the picul, for the respective kinds, nearly 

 139,000 Spanish dollars ; and the whole expense of collecting, curing, and 

 packing, amounts to no more than 1 1 per cent, on this account. The price 

 of birds' nests is of course a monopoly price, the quantity produced being by 

 nature limited and incapable of being augmented. The value of tlie labour 

 expended in bringing birds' nests to market is but a trifling portion of their 

 price, wliich consists of the highest price which the luxurious Chinese will 

 afford to pay for them, and which is a tax paid by that nation to the inhabi- 

 tants of the Indian islands. There is, perhaps, no production upon which 

 human industry is exerted, of which the cost of production bears so small 

 a jToportion to the market prire."— Crawford's Indian Archipelago. 



