68 BRITISH BORNEO. 
and, either by hand or by a suitable pole to the end of which 
is attached a lighted candle, secure the wealth-giving luxury 
for the epicures of China. There are two principal seasons 
for collecting the nests, and care has to be taken that the col- 
lection is made punctually at the proper time, before the eggs 
are all hatched, otherwise the nests become dirty and fouled 
with feathers, &c., and discoloured and injured by the damp, 
thereby losing much of their market value. Again, if the 
nests are not collected for a season, the birds do not build 
many new ones in the following season, but make use of 
the old ones, which thereby become comparatively valueless. 
There are, roughly speaking, three qualities of nests, suffi- 
ciently described by their names—white, red, and black—the 
best quality of each fetching, at Sandakan, Bee catty of 14 lbs., 
$16, 57 and 8 cents respectively. ° 
The question as to the true cause of the difference in the 
nests has not yet been satisfactorily solved. Some allege that 
the red and black nests are simply white ones deteriorated 
by not having been collected in due season. I myself incline 
to agree with the natives that the nests are formed by different. 
birds, for the fact that, in one set of caves, black nests are always 
found together in one part, and white ones in another, though 
both are collected with equal care and punctuality, seems almost 
inexplicable under the first theory. It is true that the differ- 
ent kinds of nests are not found in the same season, and it is 
just possible that the red and black nests may be the second 
efforts at building made by the swifts after the collectors have 
disturbed them by gathering their first, white ones. In the 
inferior nests, feathers are found mxed up with the gelatin- 
ous matter forming the walls, as though the glands were un- 
able to secrete a sufficient quantity of material, and the bird 
had to eke it out with its own feathers. In the substance of 
the white nests no feathers are found. 
Then, again, it is sometimes found in the case of two dis- 
tinct caves, situated at no great distance apart, that the one 
yields alinost entirely white nests, and the other nearly all red, 
or black ones, though the collections are made with equal 
regularityin each. ‘Lhe natives, as 1 have said, seem to think 
that there are two kinds of birds, and the Hon. R. ABER- 
