No doubt it was her dinner, for it had now got to that hour of the day.
She was not to be kept waiting any longer.

Almost on the instant her provider alighted on the projecting spur, with a toss of his head he jerked the piece of snake up into the air, and then caught it as it came down again--not with the intention to swallow it, but only to get a better grip, in order that he might deliver it the more adroitly into the mandibles of his mate--now protruding through the aperture, and opened to receive it.
In another instant the savoury morsel was transferred from the beak of the male to that of the female; and then the ivory forceps of the latter, with the snake held tightly between them, disappeared within the cavity.
The old cock stayed not a moment longer upon the tree.

He had served his mate with her dinner, and perhaps he had yet to bring on the dessert.

Whether or not, he rose immediately afterwards into the air, with the same clangorous clapping of his wings; but this time the noise was accompanied by the clattering of his horny mandibles, like a pair of castanets, causing a sound not only singular, but, if heard by strangers, calculated to beget within them a considerable feeling of alarm..