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Updated: June 28, 2025
"Don't talk to us about nature and justice and sense," replied the Pelican, contemptuously. "This is a Court of law, we have nothing to do with any of them!" The Court all cheered at this reply, and the Magpie subsided in the sulks. "Call the Kangaroo!" cried the white Ibis. "It's no good," jeered the Kookooburra. "Kangaroo and Dot are great friends. She won't come if you called "
"Dot!" cried her father, dropping his gun, and stumbling blindly forward with outstretched arms, towards his little girl, who had just tumbled out of the Kangaroo's pouch in her hurry to reach her father. "Hoo! hoo! ho! ho! he! he! ha! ha! ha! ha!" laughed a Kookooburra on a tree, as he saw Dot clasped in her father's great strong arms, and the little face hidden in his big brown beard.
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.
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?"
At last the Kookooburra flew up with its victim for the last time, and, holding it on the branch with its foot, beat the serpent's head with its great strong beak. Dot could hear the blows fall, whack, whack, whack, as the beak smote the Snake's head; first on one side, then on the other, until it lay limp and dead across the bough. "Ah! ah! ah!
At last the Kookooburra flew up with its victim for the last time, and, holding it on the branch with its foot, beat the serpent's head with its great strong beak. Dot could hear the blows fall, whack, whack, whack, as the beak smote the Snake's head; first on one side, then on the other, until it lay limp and dead across the bough. "Ah! ah! ah!
In vain the dreadful creature tried to bite the gallant bird; in vain it hissed and stuck out its wicked little spiky tongue; in vain it tried to coil itself round the bird's body; the Kookooburra was too strong and too clever to lose its hold, or to let the Snake get power over it.
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.
Dot did not really hear all this, nor heed the excellent advice of the Kookooburra, not to eat those hard green beetles that had disagreed with it, for a little shivering movement had gone through the Snake, and presently all the scales of its shining black back and rosy underpart began to move. Dot felt quite sick, as she saw the reptile begin to uncoil itself, as it lay upon her.
The Pelican said nothing, but stared at the judge with an eye of such astonishment and stern contempt, that the Cockatoo Instantly remembered that he was a judge, and, getting into a proper attitude, said hastily, "Advance Australia! Who's the next witness?" And again the Kookooburra laughed to himself on the tree. "Fur first!" exclaimed a white Ibis. "Call the Platypus!"
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