1980 Walter D. Koenig Melanerpes formicivorus Plague Hastings Reservation (30 May) as soon as possible, prior to her own 1st egg on the 24th. ② 7494 laid the runt egg, 7496 laid the good egg on the 23rd. 7494 somehow 'knew' her egg was no good, thus emptied the nest completely prior to her own 1st good egg on the 24th. ③ 7494 laid both eggs or the good egg. She then got extremely confused and tossed the eggs ⚫ out of sheer inexperience. Of these 3, I like #1 the best: the only catch is: can a bird lay a runt egg simultaneously with a normal egg? I never thought that this would be a key sociobiological question, but I guess I was wrong. Possibility #2 is the only other 'reasonable' alternative. However, if either even if #2 fits (more or less), either the 'goal' of the tossing was to get rid of 7496's good egg or else a) why didn't runt eggs tossed out more often? b) why did she toss both eggs, and the good one 1st no less? The problem here is: ☺ does a ♀ ever toss her own eggs, bad or not? If so, we might have been expected to see it elsewhere, but I suspect the answer is no. All in all, we can't eliminate #2, but, given the striking coincidence that egg tossing again occurred, exactly where we predicted it, I'm willing to defend the hypothesis that 7494 (who, after all, is the dominant) knew exactly what she was doing, whether it was tossing both of 7496's eggs or tossing 7496's good egg and her bad egg. Following the events on 23 May, the subsequent laying