BIRDS' nests, in cookery, the nest of a small Indian swallow, very delicately tasted, and fequently mixed among soups. On the sea coasts of China, at cer tain seasons of the year, there are seen vast numbers of these birds ; they leave the inland country at their breeding time, and come to build in the rocks, and fashion their nests out of a matter which they find on the shore, washed thither by the waves. The nature of this substance is scarcely yet ascertained. Ac cording to Kempfer, it is molluscw, or sea-worms ; according to M. le Poivre, fish-spawn ; according to Dalrymple, sea weeds : and according to Linnaeus, it is the animal substance frequently found on the beach, which fishermen call blubbers, or jellies. The nests are of a hemisphe ric figure, and of the size of a goose's egg, and in substance much resemble the ichthyocolla, or isinglass. The Chinese gather these nests, and sell them to all parts of the world : they dissolve in broths, &c. and make akind of jelly, of a very delicious flavour. These nests are found in great abundance in the island of Sumatra, particularly about Croe, near the south end of the island. Four miles up the river of that name is a large cave, where the birds build in vast num bers. The nests are distinguished into white and black ; of which the first are by far more scarce and valuable, being found in the proportion of one only to twenty five. The white sort sells in China at the rate of 10J0 to 1500 Spanish dollars the pecul ; the black is usually disposed of at Batavia for about twenty dollars the same weight, where it is chiefly converted into glue, of which it makes a very superior kind. The difference between the two has by some been supposed to be owing to the mixture of the feathers of the birds with the viscous substance of which the nests are formed : and this they deduce from the experiment of steeping the black nests for a short time in hot water, when they are said to become in a great degree white. When the natives pre
pare to take the nests, they enter the caves with torches, and forming ladders, according to the usual mode, of a single bamboo notched, they ascend and pull down the nests, which adhere in numbers together, from the side and top of the rocks. They say, that the more frequent ly and regularly the cave is stripped, the greater proportion of white nests they are sure to find, and that on this experi rience they often make a practice of beat ing down and destroying the old nests in larger quantities than they trouble them selves to carry away, in order that they may find white nests the next season in their room. The birds, during the build in time, are seen in large flocks on the beach, collecting in their bills the foam which is thrown up by the surf, of which there is little doubt but they construct their nests, after it has undergone per haps a preparation, from a commixture with their saliva, or other secretion, with which nature has provided them for that purpose.
Births, singing, are, the mocking-bird, nightingale, blackbird, starling, thrush, linnet, lark, throstle,canary-bird,bullfinch, goldfinch, &c. See some very curious experiments and observations on the sing ing of birds. Phil. Trans. vol. lxiii part ii. No. 31. Their first sound is called chirp, which is a single sound repeated at short intervals ; the next call, which is a repetition of one and the same note ; and the third sound is called recording, which a young bird continues to do for ten or eleven months, till he is able to execute every part of his song ; and when he is perfect in his lesson, he is said to sing his song round. Their notes are no more innate than language in man ; they all sing in the same key. The honoura ble author Haines Barrington has attempt ed to reduce their comparative merits to a scale ; and to explain how they first came to have particular notes.