1957 D. D. McCracken Digital Computer Programming xvii. 207 The factored series is then evaluated ‘from the inside out’, which is also called nesting.

1958 C. F. Hockett Course in Mod. Linguistics xxi. 189 The presence of certain attributive constructions in the nesting precludes the occurrence of certain others at a more inclusive level: we can say this fresh milk, but not fresh this milk.

1966 Y. Bar-Hillel in Automatic Transl. of Lang. (NATO Summer School, Venice, 1962) 11 The same degree of nesting is also assigned to the terminal expression as analysed by this tree.

1972 R. R. K. Hartmann & F. C. Stork Dict. Lang. & Linguistics 150/2 Nesting, the embedding of a phrase or clause within an endocentric phrase to modify its head word.

1986 D. Deutsch in T. C. Bartee Digital Communications V. 197 There may be hierarchy or nesting present in the information to be represented.

1991 Verbatim 18 i. 10/1 What I missed..is a mention of a major innovation in this dictionary: nesting.

1928 Q. Rev. Biol. 3 444 The Platypus... This book is the outcome of nearly twenty years personal observation... The ground covered is as follows: Discovery and early descriptions;..the nesting-burrow; [etc.].

1994 Independent on Sunday 19 June 10/5 The sweet-faced but much loathed bush-tail possum, now a rarity in its native Australia, squats in kiwi nesting burrows and eats their eggs.

1924 J. A. Thomson Sci. Old & New xxi. 116 The selection is marked by the bird's remaining near the chosen spot and giving the nesting-call to the mate.

1960 E. N. Caldwell Last Witness for R. L. Stevenson iv. 84 The slow rustle of broad-leafed breadfruit trees, the sharp, harsh swish of palm fronds, nesting calls of wild pigeons like muted notes of dryads' flutes, [etc.].

1934 Jrnl. Animal Ecol. 3 115 Population control is largely determined by an optimum ‘mixing’ of food, shelter, nesting cover and other factors.

1990 Farm Jrnl. Feb. b6/1 Douglas..used the chapter's seed to plant..two acres of nesting cover on his set-aside land.

1908 Science 10 July 60 The few alcatrases which remain had chosen this one island..for their nesting-ground.

1989 Nature Conservancy Mar. 12/1 Hundreds of thousands of snow geese use these wetlands for a month or two before returning to their central Arctic nesting grounds.

1869 Nature 9 Dec. 164/1 A letter was read..containing some remarks as to priority of discovery of the remarkable nesting-habits of the horn bills.

1936 Brit. Birds 30 98 The average size of the broods of the Swallow..and other questions connected with their nesting-habits..bring the enquiry to a close.

1990 Field Feb. 10/2 In a year when the world seems to have turned upside down, it is not surprising to find that even the lowly wren has transformed its nesting habits.

1886 Cent. Mag. Aug. 559 The soil..was burrowed by the birds [sc. puffins] into a perfect honeycomb of passages, and so completely undermined that it was impossible to walk without frequently breaking into the nesting-holes beneath.

1936 Brit. Birds 29 379 The height above ground of the nesting-hole varies according to the choice there is of decayed wood.

1992 Holiday Which? Sept. 190/3 Note the pigeon nesting-holes in the farmhouse opposite.

1861 L. L. Noble After Icebergs 180 As wild-looking as the nesting-place of sea-fowl.

1990 S. Harrison Mother Earth Father Sky i. ii. 17 The cliffs were a nesting place for auks and puffins.

1868 Amer. Naturalist 2 379 I take a light cane-pole..and follow down the banks of Scantic River in the nesting-season.

1904 H. Brierley in Christian World 11 Feb. 22/5 When the nesting season is over, the parental robins retire to the thickest woods and copses.

1977 R. Dahl Wonderful Story Henry Sugar 90 That's not nice, shootin' little birds in the nestin' season.

1870 Amer. Naturalist 3 569 It [sc. the osprey] undoubtedly nested here before the thorough disforesting of the seacoast; a former nesting site..being still remembered.

1986 Jrnl. (Fairfax County, Va.) 23 May A16/1 Funny thing is, if you return the next day to a nesting site you've just thinned out, you'll probably find each depression again holding a fish!

1879 E. Arnold Light of Asia i. xiii. 20 All the jungle laughed with nesting-songs.

1946 G. H. Seward Sex & Social Order iii. 40 The nesting song apparently reminds other birds that the territory is occupied.

1882 Hist. Berwickshire Naturalists' Club 9 506 They..cling to their nesting stations.

1954 Science 3 Sept. 382 The characteristics of..their major nesting stations on the circumference of the north Atlantic, and the species pertaining to each, are considered.

1923 J. S. Huxley Ess. Biologist vii. 291 The sense of being a trespasser so often shown by a bird that has ventured upon the nesting-territory of another.

1990 Birder's World Aug. 59/3 It may be that such dominance interactions are a means of honing skills needed for maintaining nesting territories and obtaining food.

1883 Harper's Mag. Dec. 101/1 In the warm weeks of June come the sterner duties, the nesting-time.

1990 D. Attenborough Trials of Life 23 All in all, nesting time is a particularly demanding and dangerous period in a bird's life.

1881 Scribner's Monthly Oct. 935/2 The..joy displayed by our familiar bluebird on its first arrival in spring at the old nesting-tree..which has been its home in former years.

1935 Brit. Birds 28 347 Return to nesting-trees.—First seen on February 18th.

1990 Birder's World Aug. 46/1 The egret population is down in part because of loss of nesting trees, due to Dutch elm disease and oak wilt.

1869 Amer. Naturalist 3 554 In the spring of 1868, a young friend of mine..desiring to obtain eggs of the Purple Martin, constructed a nesting box and hung it out of the window.

1933 H. Nicolson Diary 5 Jan. (1966) 131 Up Broadway and Madison to the hotel. Nesting-boxes.

1992 N.Y. Times 20 Oct. c4/4 Dr. Beissinger was able to increase the birth rate of a population of green-rumped parrotlets, by making nesting boxes available.

1658 J. Rowland tr. T. Moffett Theater of Insects in Topsell's Hist. Four-footed Beasts (rev. ed.) 930 The Bombylus, greatest of the nesting Insects, is bigger than either of the Sirens.

1797 T. Holcroft tr. F. L. Stolberg Trav. (ed. 2) III. lxxxviii. 467 There is a wall, which has cavities for nesting doves.

1851 E. B. Browning Casa Guidi Windows i. xi. 29 Insecure, The nesting swallows fly off.

1895 Atlantic Monthly July 63 The nesting-bird was one of the group.

1936 Brit. Birds 29 307 The ‘mobbings’ of nesting Rooks by other members of the colony..are sexual in origin.

1994 Nature Conservancy May 17/1 Once she starts laying eggs, the turtle is totally vulnerable: Worldwide, poachers still take millions of eggs each year, and nesting females are illegally slaughtered for soup, steak, combs and aphrodisiacs.

1934 A. Woollcott While Rome Burns 29 He [sc. Harpo, a French poodle] was gracious, for instance, toward Erich Maria Remarque, a dachshund who fitted under him like a nesting table.

1961 G. Millerson Technique Television Production viii. 150 (caption) Nesting sets may be placed one within the other, the inner one being struck to reveal the outer.

1970 Washington Post 30 Sept. b8/5 (advt.) Front-zipped cotton luggage... Six nesting sizes.

1977 P. Leach Baby & Child 499/4 A pull-string musical box, nesting toys, containers and things to put in and out of them.

2001 C. Fiell & P. Fiell Design of 20th Cent. 106 His nesting tables and a highly rational, ladder-like bookcase were exhibited..in 1949.

1952 Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 3 707 We shall now make the condition (b) more strict and assume instead that our selection process has the following nesting property.

1962 Gloss. Terms Automatic Data Processing (B.S.I.) 41 Nesting loops, a loop of instructions containing an inner loop.

1980 R. G. Garside Archit. Digital Computers (BNC) 97 The English-Electric KDF9 computer..provided such a stack, implemented in hardware and referred to as a ‘nesting store’, instead of a conventional accumulator.

1991 Professional Engin. July 39/2 Such a plotter will produce a variety of plot sizes and may use nesting software to optimise paper use.