Abstract
IT is scarcely probable that the famous birds-nest soup which Chinese cooks at the Health Exhibition offer to favoured visitors will ever become a popular dish in England. The tasteless, gelatinous compound is not suited to our palates. Perhaps this is not to be regretted, as the supply of material for this mysterious compound is far from being inexhaustible. There appears to be only one place in the world where it can be obtained in any quantity, aid this has recently been visited by Mr. Pryer, a naturalist of Yokohama, who communicates his observations to the japan Gazette, an English journal published in that settlement. Leaving Elopura, the infant capital of the infant colony of British North Borneo, in March last, Mr. Pryer ascended for some thirty miles the Sapugaya River, which flows into Sandakan Bay, on which the town is built. Passing through the mangrove and nipa swamps which line the banks, he arrived at noon on the second day at his destination—the celebrated birds'-nest caves of Gomanton. These caves, which are two in number, called by the natives the Black and the White Caves, are situated in a limestone cliff 900 feet in height, which the traveller came on quite suddenly in the centre of the forest. The porch, Mr. Pryer writes, is rather over 100 feet wide by 250 high, and the roof slopes up for 110 feet more, so that the height of this magnificent natural cathedral is 360 feet. The interior of the Black Cave is well lighted, as there is a large circular hole in the roof on the right, and a smaller one on the left, forming two aisles. The walls and roof are rugged, and beautifully coloured, shading from black to brown, gray, dark yellow, red, and green. The nests of the bats and swifts were seen hanging in clusters from the sides and roof, and here and there in seemingly the most inaccessible places were the rattan stages, ladders, and ropes of the nest-gatherers. These latter reached their perilous heights by means of many smaller caves in the cliff above. The White Cave is 400 feet higher up than the Black Cave, and at the entrance to this the nestgatherers live under a guard of the North Borneo Company's soldiers. After some examination Mr. Pryer was able to discover the material which forms these mysterious nests, and from which they derive the qualities which render them so highly prized in China. They are made from a soft fungoid growth that incrusts the limestone in all damp situations; it grows about an inch thick, outside dark brown, but inside white. The birds make the black nests from the outside layer, and the best quality of white nests are, of course, from the inside. It is taken by the
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Birds'-Nest Soup . Nature 30, 271–272 (1884). https://doi.org/10.1038/030271a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/030271a0