A nest is a place of refuge to hold an animal's eggs or provide a place to live or raise offspring. They are usually made of some organic material such as twigs, grass, and leaves; or may simply be a depression in the ground, or a hole in a tree, rock or building. Human-made materials, such as string, plastic, cloth, hair or paper, may also be used.
Generally each species has a distinctive style of nest. Nests can be found in many different habitats. They are built primarily by birds, but also by mammals (e.g. squirrels), fish, insects (e.g. wasps, termites and honey bees) and reptiles (e.g. snakes and turtles).
The urge to prepare an area for the building of a nest is referred to as the nesting instinct and may occur in both mammals (bears, gorillas, ...) and birds.
Read more about Nest: Bird Nest, Names of Nests, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the word nest:
“Id rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know youll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit em, but remember its a sin to kill a mockingbird.... Mockingbirds dont do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They dont eat up peoples gardens, dont nest in corncribs, they dont do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. Thats why its a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
—Harper Lee (b. 1926)
“We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crows nest of that ship.”
—John Lennon (19401980)
“Under that wide hearth
a nest of rattlers,
theyll knot a hundred together,
had wintered and were coming awake.
The warming rock
flushed them out early.”
—Robert Morgan (b. 1944)