Note 14 — Chapter IV

3. A more profitable product is the nest made by certain small black birds, which are mistakenly called swallows. The material of which the nest is made, in order to lay and hatch their eggs, is yet unknown. It is regarded as sure that its manufacture takes place [288] in the breast or crop, whence issues a long filament. Those filaments stick together because of their viscous nature, and at their extremities adhere to the rock. Those nests are usually located in very overhanging and rough places, in such a way that the continual rains do not unfasten or destroy them, although the birds always endeavor to place them under shelter. The shape of the nest is similar to that of the regular swallow, although smaller. It is known that that filament is produced with difficulty. It is like fine vermicelli, which is sometimes accompanied with drops of blood. It is white and somewhat transparent, like ice. It is prepared in various ways, but a soup resembling that of vermicelli, but of better taste, and incomparably more nourishing, is made with the broth from a substantial olio, or stew. It is very useful for those who suffer from evacuations and dysentery; it corrects those ailments and is good as a mild and dissolvent food. The Chinese esteem it highly, and generally pay, according to its scarcity or abundance, eight, nine, and sixteen pesos per cate, which contains twenty-one onzas. They are very difficult to gather, for the birds always build them in craggy locations, in whose tortuous and precipitous caverns they are only obtained by descending a rope. Some are obtained by climbing up bamboos, finding a rest for the feet on the knots, which are left with large projections for that purpose. So dangerous evolutions cost even broken arms and legs, and sometimes even cause death. The taking of the nests is repeated three times during the calm months of the year. The latter part of December, those to whom are assigned crags—in which it is not right for one to meddle with those of another, a rule that is observed [289] with much fidelity—go out. They gather the old nests, which are sufficiently blackened by the preceding rains; however, they do not lose much of their nourishment. Thus do they force the little bird to make a new nest, as it cannot make use of the old one for breeding. As the desire to breed is excited by its nature, the industrious little bird strives to build its nest before breeding. All the month of January is spent in its costly labors. The destroyers come and tear them down. Sometimes they are found with eggs, and sometimes even imperfect; but nothing restrains their greed, and they tear down all indifferently. The disconsolate birds again begin to build their nest, and at the end of February or the beginning of March the Indians repeat their robbery. The saddened bird, forced to build its shelter at the behest of nature in the multiplication of the species repeats its anxious labors. Either because there is not enough material for so many labors, or because the season has passed in their periods, the bird does not possess the same inclination in its formation; the nest is finished later, and is less juicy, as experience has shown, for at that time the rainy season generally sets in. That, and the Moros who infest these seas cause the harvest of nests involuntarily to be abandoned. However, if the above circumstances do not prevent, the third excursion is not lacking. All the crags are not accessible, and where those furtive assaults cannot be made, the number of those industrious little birds is prodigious.”14 [290]