256 
EDIBLE SWALLOW NESTS. 
bird, or made thicker, until it is entirely deserted by her, 
when it becomes dry or hairy in the inside. When the nests 
have been collected, no further trouble is necessary than to 
dry and clean them; after which they are put in baskets, and 
sold to the Chinese. The price of them depends on their 
whiteness and fineness. Those of the best sort are exceedingly 
scarce. They are sold at the rate of from eight to fourteen 
hundred rix- dollars per one hundred and twenty-five pounds, 
which amounts in our money to the sum of from thirty to 
forty-two shillings per pound. This high price and the great 
avarice of the Chinese, give rise to much dishonesty and 
thieving. The two places above-mentioned, were, about fifty 
years ago, sold by auction by the Dutch East India Company, 
to the highest bidder, who received for them above twenty- 
thousand pounds more than they expected, which proves the 
value and quantity of these singular productions. About 
two thousand five hundred pounds’ weight of these nests 
are collected every year in the island of Java, which, at an 
average of the above prices, amounts to about five thousand 
pounds a-year. 
Some of these bird- caverns are dreadfully exposed, par- 
ticularly a few situated on the coast ; these are washed by 
the sea, which forces its way so deep into the latter, that fish 
may be caught in it ; but on account of the steepness of the 
rocks, the nests can only be collected at the most imminent 
risk. The young birds are eaten, both by the Javanese and 
the Europeans in India; but they are considered to be very 
heating, and are, moreover, difficult to procure. The nests, 
on the other hand, when they have been boiled to a kind of 
slimy sort of soup, exposed in the night-time to the dew, and 
mixed with sugar, are exceedingly cooling, and they are there- 
fore much used in violent fevers ; they are also prescribed, 
and with great success, in cases of hoarseness and sore 
throats. They are, however, not supposed to be possessed of 
any very superior medical qualities, and are chiefly sold as 
articles of luxury, and ornaments for the tables of the rich 
Chinese. Their mode of using them is to put them, after 
being well soaked and cleaned, along with a fat capon or 
