M 



NOTE on P. 150. 



Tsorjcn little can be added to M. Posvre's defcriptkra of the Salangane, or Hirundo mils eiulihus s 

 yet, as Captain Forrest was a perfect mailer of the Malay tongue, and defcribed only what he had feen s 

 It will not be amifs to fubjoin his account of that Angular bird. <E The bird with an edible neft is called, 

 <* lays he, Jaimaldnihy the natives of the Moluccas, and Layang-layang by the Malays : it is black as 

 ■'" jet, and very much like a marten, but considerably fmaller<> Its nefls, which the Malays call Sevang, are 

 «« found in caves, and generally in thofe, to which the fea has accefs ; and, as they are built in rows on 

 ts perpendicular rocks, from whieh the young birds, frequently fall, thofe caves are frequented by iifh and 

 * f often by fnakes, who are hunting for prey.: they are made of a flimy gelatinous fubftance found on the 

 ss Ihore, of the fea -weed called agal agal, and of. a foft greenifh fizy matter often feen on rooks in the fhade 

 ee when the water coses from above. 'Before a man enters fucha cave, he ■flvould frighten out the birds, 

 * s or keep his face covered. The Jaimalanilays her eggs four times a year, but only two at a time: if 

 44 her neft be not torn from the rock, fhe will ufe it once more, but it then becomes dirty and black: a neft, 

 ** nfed but once before it is gathered, muft be dried in the fhade, ft nee it eafily abforbs moifture, and, if 

 ** expofed to the fun, becomes red. Such edible nefts are fometimes found, in caves, which the fea never 

 " enters, but they are always of a dark hue, inftead of being, like that now produced, very nearly pellu- 

 ** cid : they may be met with in rocky iflands over the whole eafiern Archipelago, (by far the largeft in 

 ** the world) but never, I believe, on the coaft of China, whither multitudes of them are carried from 

 «• Ratavia. The white and tranfparent nefts are highly efteemed, and'fold at Batav'm for feven, eight, 

 ** nine, or teu dollars a catty of if lb. but the crafty Ghin'efi at that port, who pack up the nefts, one in 

 *f another to the length of a foot or eighceen inches, that they may not eafily be broken, feldom fail by & 

 * variety of artifices to impofe on their employers. " 





