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.
From a mound adjacent to the beach a black boy brought fifteen eggs as we
picnicked on the beach, and though some of them were nigh upon hatching,
not one was covered with white ants--which, an authority asserts,
particularly like crawling over the eggshells, so as to be ready when
wanted by the chicks.
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