THE ESCULENT SWALLOW. a7t 
The nest is. a very firmly made but yet rude and inartificial structure. 
The materials of which it is made are generally straw, hay, and feathers, 
pieces of rag, or any soft and warm substance which the bird may find in its 
rambles, and, when woven into a kind of nest, are firmly cemented together 
with a kind of glutinous substance secreted by certain glands. In Norway 
and Sweden the Swift builds in hollow trees. The eggs are from two to five 
in number, not often, however, exceeding three, and in colour they are pure 
white. In this country the Swift pays but a very short visit, as the bird 
evidently requires a very high temperature, and is forced to depart as soon as 
the weather becomes chilly. Generally the Swifts leave England by the end of 
August, but there 
are often instances 
wkere a_ solitary 
bird has delayed its 
voyages for some 
good reason. 
AMONG the many 
“travellers’ tales” 
which called forth 
such repudiation 
and ridicule from 
the sceptical readers 
of the earlier voy- 
agers, the accounts 
of the Chinese cui- 
sine were held to be 
amongst the most 
extravagant. 
That civilized be- 
ings should conde- 
scend 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’ pre- 
vious assertions. 
The birds that make these remarkable nests belong to several species, four 
of which have been acknowledged. There are the ESCULENT SWALLow, 
the Linchi (Collocahia fuciphaga), the White-backed Swallow (Collocalia 
troglodytes), and the Grey-backed Swallow (Collocalia Francica). 
These nests could hardily 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 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 tremendous caverns in Java 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 
erilous in the extreme. 
The nests are of very different value, those which have been used in rear- 
ESCULENT SWALLOW, —( Ceseveutin nidiped.} 
