Egg-Swallowing Feats - One of the most persistent observers holds
the view that not only the cuckoo but a number of other birds, including warblers, regurgitate. Two observers witnessed a meadow pipit herself "deposit by regurgitation," and one of them says, "Next season (D.V.) I shall hope to obtain definite proof that regurgitation applies not only to warblers, but also to ground-nesting species." The expectation is interesting. If a cuckoo, why not other birds ? The differences are that a cuckoo is a big bird that lays a very small egg and has no nest. It seems superfluous for a bird that lays an egg very big in relation to its beak and throat and has a perfectly good nest at hand, to lay the egg elsewhere, swallow it and regurgitate into the nest ; but these things cannot be settled by argument. The observed fact is all that matters. To my mind Mr. Chance's photographs and Mr. Bunyard'A excellent drawings of what he saw as good as prove that the cuckoo at any rate adopts both methods, though the votaries of each theory are furious that the opposite heresy should be so much as considered.
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