402 



MASSACRE ISLANDS. 



[1830. 



luxury ; believing that it wonderfully strengthens and nourishes the 

 system, and renews the exhausted vigour of the immoderate volup- 

 tuary. The first quality commands a high price in Canton, being worth 

 ninety dollars a picul; the second quality, seventy-five dollars; the 

 third, fifty dollars ; the fourth, thirty dollars ; the fifth, twenty dollars ; 

 the sixth, twelve dollars ; the seventh, eight dollars ; and the eighth 

 quality only four dollars per picul. Small cargoes, however, will often 

 bring more in Manilla, Singapore, and Batavia. 



As there is an evident affinity between the two articles, this may 

 not be an improper place to say something of the " edible birds' nests" 

 already mentioned more than once in the course of this narrative. 

 The birds which construct these nests are a species of swallow, re- 

 sembling, in many respects, the bank or cliff-swallows of our own sea- 

 coast, which build their nests in the yellow loamy precipices that sur- 

 round all the New-England bays. The edible-nest builder is small, 

 between three and four inches long, having a white breast, and a white 

 spot on each tail-feather. This bird collects a white glutinous sub- 

 stance from the sun-fish, biche-de-mer, <fec, which are left by the 

 receding tides on some parts of the coral-reefs, at the last of the ebb ; 

 and of this they form their nests, in the clefts and crevices of rocks, 

 in the most inaccessible places which they can find. So that the na- 

 tives of these islands of the Pacific Ocean, who make it a business to 

 hunt for these nests for the Chinese market, are sometimes obliged to 

 dive into the water, in order to enter the submarine mouths of caverns 

 where this sagacious bird has chosen her residence. 



These nests are attached close to the rock, which serves for one 

 side ; or, when built in an angle, two sides of the curious fabric. 

 When finished, and sufficiently hardened in the sun, the cunning little 

 architect moves into her habitation, and prepares for the production of 

 a family. She generally lays three or four eggs, which are about the 

 size of a robin's egg, but the shell is perfectly white. The nest, when 

 taken from the rock, has the capacity of a quarter of an orange-peel, 

 taken from fruit of the largest size. It is generally white, like isin- 

 glass ; and when collected by the natives of the Sooloo, Celebes, 

 New-Guinea, or the islands in the vicinity, they are packed, like tea- 

 cups, one within the other, in bunches of two or three pounds each. 

 A single nest weighs about two or three ounces. I have often eaten of 

 the soups which are made of these nests, and have found them pos- 

 sessing a very agreeable aromatic flavour. 



