Mr. J. H. Moor, in his notices of the Indian Archipelago, published at Singapore some years ago, states, that ‘one of the principal and most valuable articles of exportation is the edible birdsnests, white and black. These are found in much greater abundance in and about the Coti, more than any other part of Borneo, or from what we at present know on the subject, all parts put together. On the western coast they are scarcely known to exist; about Banjermassin and Bagottan there are none; at Bataliching and Passier they are found in considerable quantities. At Browe there is abundance of the black kind of a very superior quality, but little of the white. At Seboo, and all the parts to the north of Borneo, we know there is none, as I have seen many letters from different Rajahs of those countries averring the fact, and begging the Sultan of Coti to exchange his edible nests for their most valuable commodities, and at his own price. Nor ought this to create surprise, when we consider, not only the large consumption of this article by the Cambojans, who almost exclusively inhabit some of the largest Sooloo Islands, and the northern parts of Borneo, but the amazing demand on the whole coast of Cambodia, particularly of Cochin China, the principal inhabitants of which countries are as partial to this luxury as their more northern neighbours—the Chinese. There are in Coti and adjacent Dyak countries perhaps eighty known places, or what the natives term holes, which produce the white nests. I have seen the names of forty-three. There can, however, be no doubt there are many more likewise known to the Dyaks, who keep the knowledge to themselves, lest the Bugis should dispossess them, which they know from experience is invariably the case.
‘According to the accounts of the Sultan, rendered by Saib Abdulla, the bandarree in 1834 yielded 134 piculs. The usual price in money to the Coti traders is 23 reals per catty from the Dyaks, and 25 in barter. The black nests may be procured in great abundance. The best kinds come from Cinculeram and Baley Papang. The latter mountain alone yields 230 piculs (of 113⅓ lbs.). Cinculeram gives nearly as much. There are several other parts of Coti which produce them, besides the quantity brought down by the Dyaks. Last year, 130 piculs paid duty to the Sultan; these left the large Coti river. Those from Cinculeram and Bongan were taken to Browe and Seboo. The bandarree’s book averages the annual weight of those collected in the lower part of Coti at 820 piculs (about 1,025 cwts.)
‘The Pangeran Sierpa and the Sultan say they could collect 2,700 piculs of black nests, if the bandarree and capella-campong would behave honestly. The Sultan, however, seldom gets any account of what is sent to Browe, Seboo, and the Sooloo Islands, the quality of which is far superior to any sent to European ports.’
The exports of birdsnests from Java, between 1823 and 1832, averaged about 250 piculs a year; in 1832, 322 piculs; but of late years the exports have not averaged half that amount; and in 1853 and 1854 there were only about 35 or 40 piculs shipped.
In the third order, Scansores, there are very few edible birds.
In the mountain of Tumeriquiri, in the government of Cumana, is the immense cavern of Guacharo, famous among the Indians. It serves as a habitation for millions of nocturnal birds (Steatornis caripensis, a new species of the Caprimulgis, of Linnæus), whose fat yields the oil of Guacharo.
Once a year, near midsummer, this cavern is entered by the Indians. Armed with poles, they ransack the greater part of the nests, while the old birds hover over the heads of the robbers as if to defend their brood, uttering horrible cries. The young which fall down are opened on the spot. The peritoneum is found loaded with fat, and a layer of the same substance reaches from the abdomen to the vent, forming a kind of cushion between the hind legs. Humboldt remarks that this quantity of fat in frugivorous animals, not exposed to the light, and exerting but little muscular motion, brings to mind what has been long observed in the fattening of geese and oxen. ‘It is well known,’ he adds, ‘how favourable darkness and repose are to this process.’
At the period above mentioned, which is generally known at Carissa by the designation of ‘the oil harvest,’ huts are built by the Indians, with palm leaves, near the entrance and even in the very porch of the cavern. There the fat of the young birds just killed is melted in clay pots, over a brushwood fire, and this fat is named butter or oil of the Guacharo. It is half liquid, transparent, inodorous, and so pure that it will keep above a year without turning rancid.[13]
There is a curious bird met with in caves in the West India Islands—as at Dominica, and the gulf of Paria, the diablotin or goat-sucker, which, if eaten when taken from the nest, is pronounced by epicures unrivalled; and the flesh is also considered a delicacy when salted.
It has received its popular cognomen from its ugliness, but I have not been able to trace its scientific name.