While collecting materials for a vocabulary,* I found that several dialects were spoken, but I failed then to connect them with particular tribes or even find out which, if any, were the resident ones.
Among these were two or three of the Papuan race, from some of the islands of Torres Strait.

It appeared to me that a constant friendly intercourse exists between the natives of the southern portion of Torres Strait and those of the mainland about Cape York, which last, from its central position, is much frequented during their occasional, perhaps periodical migrations.

This free communication between the races would account for the existence in the vocabulary I then procured at Cape York of a considerable number of words (at least 31 out of 248) identical with those given by Jukes in his vocabularies of Darnley Island and Masseed, especially the latter.
(*Footnote.

In illustration of the difficulty of framing so apparently simple a document as a vocabulary, and particularly to show how one must not fall into the too common mistake of putting down as certain every word he gets from a savage, however clearly he may suppose he is understood, I may mention that on going over the different parts of the human body, to get their names by pointing to them, I got at different times and from different individuals--for the shin-bone, words which in the course of time I found to mean respectively, the leg, the shin-bone, the skin, and bone in general.) The physical characteristics of these Australians seen at Cape York differ in no respect from those of the same race which I have seen elsewhere.

The absence of one or more of the upper incisors was not observed here, nor had circumcision or any similar rite been practised, as is the case in some parts of the continent.