THE ESCULENT SWALLOW. 



137 



AMONG the many " travellers' tales " which called forth such repudiation and ridicule 

 from the sceptical readers of the earlier voyagers, the accounts of the Chinese cuisine were 

 held to be amongst the most extravagant. 



That civilized beings should condescend to eat dogs and rats specially fattened for the 

 table, was an idea from which their own better sense revolted ; that the same nation 

 should reckon sharks' fins and sea-slugs among their delicacies, was clearly an invention 

 of the writer ; but that the Chinese should make soup out of birds' nests, was an absurdity 

 so self-evident, that it destroyed all possibility of faith in the writers' previous assertions. 

 Very witty remarks were made on the subject, and many jokes made on the manner of 

 cooking a birds' nest, so as to convert it into soup, the humourist having no conception of 

 the possibility that a birds' nest could be made of anything but sticks, moss, feathers, and 

 mud. Yet it is now a well-known fact, that certain birds have the faculty of producing 

 or discovering a curious substance with which they make these very singular nests, and 

 which is perfectly capable of being cooked and eaten. 



The birds that make these remarkable nests belong to several species, four of which 

 have been acknowledged. There 

 are the ESCULENT SWALLOW, the 

 Linchi, (Collocalia fuciphaga), the 

 White-backed Swallow, ( Collocalia 

 troglodytes], and the Grey-backed 

 Swallow, (Collocalia Francica). 



These nests could hardly be 

 recognised as specimens of bird 

 architecture by any one who had 

 not previously seen them, as they 

 look much more like a set of 

 sponges, corals, or fungi, than 



ESCULENT SWALLOW. Collocalia nidijicu,. 



or 



nests of birds. They are most 

 irregular in shape, are adherent 

 to each other, and are so rudely 

 made, that the hollow in which 

 the eggs and young are intended 

 to Live, is barely perceptible. They 

 are always placed against the face 

 of a perpendicular rock, generally 

 upon the side of one of the tre- 

 mendous caverns in Ja^a and other 

 places where these strange birds 

 love to dwell. The men who 

 procure the nests are lowered by 

 ropes from above, and their occupation is always considered as perilous in the extreme. 



While adherent to the rocks, or when gathered into baskets, the nests are not at till 

 attractive in their aspect, and it is not until they have been carefully washed and cleansed, 

 that they begin to show their semi-fibrous structure, shining through its partially 

 transparent substance. The nests are of very different value, those which have been used 

 in rearing a brood of young being comparatively low in price, while those which are quite 

 new and nearly white, are held in such esteem, that they are worth their weight in silver. 

 When placed in water and allowed to remain in soak, the nests, being made of a partially 

 gelatinous substance, begin to soften and swell, and when thoroughly dressed, are said to 

 bear some resemblance to rather stiff turtle fat. To European palates, however, they 

 appear very insipid, and not worthy of the great value which is set upon them by the 

 Chinese. 



In the British Museum may be seen a very fine specimen of the nest of the Esculent 

 Swallow, comprehending a mass of the nests still adhering to the rock. It is rather 

 remarkable that the birds have a habit of building these curious nests in horizontal layers. 



The substance of which these nests are composed is evidently of an animal nature to 



