BIRDS-NESTS, in cookery, the nest of a small Indian swallow, very delicately tailed, and frequently mixed among soups. On the sea-coasts of China, at certain 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 spumous matter, which they find on the shore, washed thither by the waves. The nature of this substance is not yet ascertained. According to Kämpfer, it is mollusca or sea-worms; according to M. le Poirre, fish-spawn; and according to Dalmyple, sea-weeds. The nests are of a hemispheric figure, and of the size of a goose's egg, and in substance much resemble the ichthyocolla or ifinglass. The Chinese gather these nests, and sell them to all parts of the world; they dissolve in broths, &c. and make a kind of jelly of a very delicious flavour.