EDIBLE BIRDS NESTS. 401 



attained the proper size. When gathering time approaches, 

 some of the pluckers daily visit the cavern to examine the state 

 of the brood. As soon as they find that most of the young are 

 beginning to be provided with feathers, their operations com- 

 mence. These nests form the first quality; those in which the 

 young are still completely naked, the second ; while those which 

 only contain eggs, and are consequently not yet ripe, rank third. 

 The nests with young whose feathers are completely developed 

 are over-ripe, black, and good for nothing. All the young and 

 eggs are thrown into the sea. The gathering takes place three 

 times a year ; the birds breed four times a year. In spite of 

 these wholesale devastations their numbers do not diminish; 

 as many of the young have no doubt flown away before the 

 day of execution, or other swallows from still unexplored caverns 

 may fill up the void. In this manner about 50 piculs are 

 annually collected, which the Chinese pay for at the rate of 

 4000 or 5000 guilders the picul. Each picul contains on an 

 average 10,000 nests. Dividing these 500,000 nests among 

 three gatherings, and reckoning two birds to each nest, we find 

 that more than 333,000 swallows inhabit at the same time the 

 Javanese coast caverns. 



In the' interior of the island, in the chalkstone grottos of 

 Bandong, the Salangana also breeds, but in far inferior numbers, 

 as here the annual collection amounts on an average to no more 

 than 14,000 nests. In these inland caves swallows and bats 

 reside together, but without disturbing each other, as the 

 former when not breeding leave their caverns at sunrise, 

 disappear in the distance, and only return late in the evening, 

 when the bats are already enjoying their vespertine or nocturnal 

 flight. 



In Sumatra and some other islands of the Indian archipelago, 

 birds' nests are likewise collected, but nowhere in such numbers 

 as in Java. They are brought to the Chinese market, where 

 they are carefully cleaned before being offered for sale to the 

 consumer. The addition of costly spices renders them one of 

 the greatest delicacies of Chinese cookery, but as for themselves 

 they are nothing better than a fine sort of gelatine. 



The Japanese have long been aware that these costly birds' nests 

 are in fact merely softened algae. They consequently pulverise 

 the proper species of sea-weeds, which are abundantly found on 



