eat flight of kookooburras, for
they had heard the laughter, and all wanted to know what the joke was.
Proudly the Kookooburra told them all about the Snake sleeping on Dot,
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 all laughed uproariously together. Dot was
nearly deafened by 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.

[Illustration: THE FIGHT BETWEEN THE KOOKOOBURRA AND THE SNAKE]

The Kangaroo had brought a pouch full of berries, and in her hand
a small spray of the magic ones, by eating which Dot was able to
understand the talk of all the bush creatures. All the time she was
wandering in the bush the Kangaroo gave her some of these to eat daily,
and Dot soon found that the effect of these strange berries only lasted
until the next day.

The Kangaroo emptied out her pouch, and Dot found quite a large
collection of r