Bird's nest

{ Bird's" nest`, or 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 algæ. 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Bird's-nest pudding, a pudding containing apples whose cores have been replaced by sugar. -- Yellow bird's nest, a plant, the Monotropa hypopitys.