Cuckoo's Egg Thrown out of Bunting's Nest

Abstract

ON the morning of May 25 I found a nest of the reed bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) with a cuckoo's egg in it besides three eggs of the bunting itself. When I took some friends to see it two or three hours later, the hen bird was sitting on the three eggs, but the cuckoo's egg was lying smashed outside the nest. It is impossible that any person could have broken it, for there were no traces of bootmarks in the soft mud on the side of the dyke where the nest was, besides it being very unlikely for anyone to have passed the spot during the short time I was away. It would interest me to know if any of your readers are acquainted with cases of small birds pitching the cuckoo's egg out of the nest instead of hatching it in the orthodox style.