As Edcole SAID, joefish, it was about SWALLOWS, not sparrows. There’s no way even TWO sparrows could carry a coconut, even if they had it on a line. It’s a simple matter of weight ratios. You need an African swallow to carry a coconut from the tropics to Mercia. But then African swallows, unlike European swallows, are non-migratory.
What Arthur didn’t address, though, was whether two European swallows might each carry HALF a coconut, particularly if the shells had been hollowed out. On the other hand the coconut shells at issue, while being halved and hollowed by the time he was challenged as to their origin, had also been HUSKED, and if he found them in Mercia already without the husks, it raises the question of where the swallows would have gripped them…
As Edcole SAID, joefish, it was about SWALLOWS, not sparrows. There’s no way even TWO sparrows could carry a coconut, even if they had it on a line. It’s a simple matter of weight ratios. You need an African swallow to carry a coconut from the tropics to Mercia. But then African swallows, unlike European swallows, are non-migratory.
What Arthur didn’t address, though, was whether two European swallows might each carry HALF a coconut, particularly if the shells had been hollowed out. On the other hand the coconut shells at issue, while being halved and hollowed by the time he was challenged as to their origin, had also been HUSKED, and if he found them in Mercia already without the husks, it raises the question of where the swallows would have gripped them…