sounded just like his old father's laugh when he laughed loud and
heartily. Then what was Martin's amazement to hear his own shout and
this chorus of bird ha, ha, ha's, repeated by hundreds of voices all
over the lake. At first he thought that the other birds were mocking
the ibises; but presently he shouted again, and again his shouts
were repeated by dozens of voices. This delighted him so much that
he spent the whole day shouting himself hoarse at the waterside.

When he related his wonderful experience at home, and heard from his
father that the sounds he had heard were only echoes from the beds
of rushes, he was not a bit wiser than before, so that the echoes
remained to him a continual wonder and source of never-failing
pleasure.

Every day he would take some noisy instrument to the lake to startle
the echoes; a whistle his father made him served for a time; after
that he marched up and down the banks, rattling a tin canister with
pebbles in it; then he got a large frying-pan from the kitchen, and
beat on it with a stick every day for about a fortnight. When he
grew tired of all these sounds, and began casting about for some new
thing to wake the echoes with, he all at once remembered his
father's gun--just what he wanted, for it was the noisiest thing in
the world. Watching his opportunity, he got secretly into the room
where it was kept loaded, and succeeded in carrying it out of the
house without being seen; then, full of joyful anticipations, he ran
as fast as the heavy gun would let him to his favourite haunt.

When he arrived at the lake three or four spoonbills--those beautiful,
tall, rose-coloured birds--were standing on the bank, quietly dozing
in the hot sunshine. They did not fly away at his approach, for the