and the great fight! All the time, first one kookooburra, and then
another, chuckled over the story, and when it came to an end every bird
dropped its wings, cocked up its tail, and throwing back its head, opened
its great beak, and laughed uproariously together. Dot was nearly
deafened with the noise; for some chuckled, some cackled; some said,
"Ha! ha! ha!" others said, "Oh! oh! oh!" and as soon as one left off,
another began, until it seemed as though they couldn't stop. They all
said it was a splendid joke, and that they really must go and tell it to
the whole bush. So they flew away, and far and near, for hours, the bush
echoed with chuckling and cackling, and wild bursts of laughter, as the
kookooburras told that grand joke everywhere.

"Now," said the Kookooburra, when all the others had gone, "a bit of snake
is just the right thing for breakfast. Will you have some, little Human?"

Dot shuddered at the idea of eating snake for breakfast, and the Kookooburra
thought she was afraid of being poisoned.

"It won't hurt you," he said, kindly, "I took care that it did not bite
itself. Sometimes they do that when they are dying, and then they're not
good to eat. But this snake is all right, and won't disagree like
cockchafers: the scales are quite soft and digestible," he added.

But Dot said she would rather wait for the berries the Kangaroo was
bringing, so the Kookooburra remarked that if she would excuse it he would
like to begin breakfast at once, as the fight had made him hungry. Then
Dot saw him hold the reptile on the branch with his foot, whilst he took
its tail into his beak, and proceeded to swallow it in a leisurely way.
In fact the Kookooburra was so slow that very little of the snake had
disappeared when the Kangaroo returned.