Some do it on perilous precipices overlooking raging seas. Some do it in cups of twigs glued to the sides of chimneys with their own saliva. Some do it in intricately woven satchels fashioned from natural and man-made fibers. Most bird species build nests and all lay eggs, but no two seem to undertake those activities in exactly the same way. And the eggs themselves! Big, tiny, spotted, swirled, dappled, riotously colored, the purest white. Egg & Nest, a new book from Harvard University Press, celebrates this diversity in exquisite photographs taken by Rosamond Purcell and explanatory text by Linnea Hall and Rene Corado about the history of egg and nest collecting, avian biology, conservation and ecology, and the provenance of the specimens in the photographs.

From the introduction, "The Allure of Eggs and Nests:"

"Every animal starts life as an egg, but only birds have evolved to enclose their eggs in a hard shell, to stock it with massive amounts of nutrients, and to guard, incubate, and cradle it in a nest. Nests and eggs vary endlessly, and the innovations in their structure are a feast for the eyes and the imagination."

Slideshow:Egg & Nest

To see the slideshow in a separate window, click here.

Egg & Nest. Rosamond Purcell, Linnea S. Hall & Rene Corado, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2008. 215 pp. ISBN:978-0-674-03172-2. $39.95.