296 SWALLOW. 



fresh nests, they may meet with more valuable ones at the next gather- 

 ing. The Dutch are said to export from Batavia alone 1000 pickles 

 every year,* which are brought from the Islands of Cochin-China, 

 and those lying eastward. 



It is much to be wondered that among other luxuries imported 

 here from the East, the use of these nests should not have found their 

 way to our tables ; as yet being so scarce in England, as to be kept 

 as rarities in the cabinets of collectors. 



18— ESCULENT SWALLOW.— Pl. cxii. 



Hirundo esculenta, Ind. Orn. ii. 580. Var. Olear. Mus. t. 14. f. 2. & 6. — the nest. 



Lin. Trans, xiii. p. 142. 

 Hirundo nido eduli, Bont. Ind. Or. p. 66. . 



Chinesische Felsen Schwalbe, De Vries, S. 279. 



Small grey Swallow, with a dirty white belly, Emb. to China, i. 288. Id. ii. p. 5. 

 Esculent Swallow, Gen. Syn. Sup. ii. 257. Pl. 135. — bird and nest. Shaw's Zool. x. 



p. 18. pl. 13. 



SIZE of the Sand Martin ; length four inches and a half, breadth 

 eleven inches. Bill small, and black ; gape wide ; general colour 

 of the plumage above dusky black, and glossy ; beneath, from chin 

 to vent, pale ash-colour ; wings long, measuring from the joint of 

 the shoulder to the end of the quills four inches and a half, and when 

 closed, they exceed the end of the tail by an inch at least ; the tail 

 is rather forked, all the feathers rounded at the ends, and the whole 

 of a plain dusky black ; the three outer feathers on each side are one 

 inch and three quarters long, but the three interior ones shorten by 

 degrees as they approach inward, the two middle being no more than 

 one inch and a quarter ; legs dusky, and bare of feathers. 



We are inclined to think, with Sir George Staunton, that more 

 than one Species is concerned in making the much-esteemed nests ; 

 but in case it be not so, the bird formerly supposed to be the fabri- 

 cator of those in question, must be totally distinct from the one here 



* Osbeck. 



