Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1883 — Edible Birds’ Nests. [ARTICLE]

Edible Birds’ Nests.

The island of Java is rieh in birds of gorgeous pin mage, but the most curious thing is the edible birds’ nests, which kre shipped in large quantities to China and the eastern islands for food. The birds that build them are a species of swallow-, and they are found in cliffs, cavqs and caverns. They are composed of a sorA-of mucilaginous substance which the Chinese relish with gusto. It is a transparent mass like isinglass, mother-of-pearl or white horn. The stuff is made by the bird, who, when you open the bill, has large salivary glands under liis tongue which supply the material. The men who hunt these nests are a daring and peculiar set. They have a goddess called Loro who is worshiped by them, and a temple at a place called Rongkop, on the summit of a tall rock. No mortal lives here, and none pass by without raising their hand in grave salutation. It is death for any one to enter except the ehief of the society of nest-pickers, who tills the office of priest. The goddess is supposed to arise from the sea and go into the temple when the season commences, and then a feast is given in her honor, music and dancing girls being in attendance. The nest-gatherers have nothing but cloth about their loins, a knife and a net bag at their side. When one goes to work he takes his place on a stage of two cross-bars fastened to the end of a rope, and is let down against the face of the rock. He grasps the rope with his left hand, and in his right lias a rod w-ith which he holds himself off' from the rocks. Sometimes he goes down several hundred feet, amid the roar of the ocean and several hundred birds flying all around him. When he comes opposite a salangan hole (that’s the name of the bird) he makes a signal, and the low-ering stops. He now swings hack and forth until he gets power enough to enter the hole and find a .footing on the rock he has noted. If he fails he is dashed to pieces on the rocks below. The man generally has a thin cord fastened to his body and the rope, so that he can pull the stage in to himself again. Should this break, however, he has to make a bold leap and catch the stage. When he has got into the caveran he cuts off the nests with his knife and places them in his bag, and when it is full he returns, and the place is supplied by another. This business is so exclusive that no foreigner has ever been allowed to participate in it. Some Dutch merchants once entered a cave, hut they never came out alive, and the Malays have a story that the Goddess Loro “took them to her bosom.” These swallows bjeed four times a year, each time making a new nest. The nest is plucked three times, and so only one brood is left to the birds.— Cincinnati Enquirer.