Bird's" nest`, Bird's-nest (?), n.
1.
The nest in which a bird lays eggs and hatches her young.
2. Cookery
The nest of a small swallow (Collocalia nidifica and several allied species), of China and the neighboring countries, which is mixed with soups.
⇒ The nests are found in caverns and fissures of cliffs on rocky coasts, and are composed in part of algae. They are of the size of a goose egg, and in substance resemble isinglass. See Illust. under Edible.
3. Bot.
An orchideous plant with matted roots, of the genus Neottia (N. nidus-avis.)
Bird's-nest pudding, a pudding containing apples whose cores have been replaces by sugar. -- Yellow bird's nest, a plant, the Monotropa hypopitys.
© Webster 1913.