The neighbouring islands include Timana, 2 1/2 miles from the sand-spit of Dunk Island and 1 1/2 mile from Kumboola. Bedarra lies a little to the southward; Tool-ghar three-quarters of a mile from Bedarra; Coomboo half a mile from Tool-ghar; and the group of three--Bud-joo, Kurrambah and Coolah--still further to the south-east. These comprise the Family Islands of the chart. On Timana are gigantic milkwood trees (ALSTONIA SCHOLARIS) which need great flying buttresses to support their immense height, their roots being mainly superficial. For many generations two ospreys have had their eyrie in one of these giant trees, fit nursery for imperial birds! With annual additions, the nest has attained immense proportions, and as years pass it will still further increase, for blacks capable of climbing such a tree and disturbing the occupants are few and far between. Great distinction and pride, however, are the lot of the athlete who secures the snowy down of the young birds to stick in tufts on his dirty head with fat, gum or beeswax, for he will be the admired of all admirers at the CORROBBOREE. Vanity impels human beings to extraordinary exertions, trials and risks, and the black who desires to outshine his fellows, and who has the essential of strength and length of limb, will make a loop of lawyer vine round the tree, and with his body within the loop begin the ascent. Having cut a notch for the left great toe, he inclines his weight against the tree, while he shifts the loop three feet or so upwards. Then he leans backward against the loop, cuts a notch for his right great toe, and so on until the nest is reached. There has been but one ascent of this tree in modern times, and the name of the black, "Spider," is still treasured. A heavy, slovenly-patched mantle of leafage, impervious to sunlight, covers the Isle of Timana, creating a region of perpetual dimness from western beach to eastern precipice, where orchids cling and palms peer on rocks below. All the vegetation is matted and interwoven, only the topmost branches of the milkwood escaping from the clinging, aspiring vines. Tradition asserts that not many years since Timana was much favoured by nutmeg pigeons, now sparsely represented; but the varied honey-eater and a friar bird possessing a most mellow and fluty note, cockatoos and metallic starlings are plentiful. Although there is no permanent fresh water, the pencil-tailed rat leaves numerous tracks on the sand, and scrub fowls keep the whole surface perpetually raked.