166 PARTULA. 



63. Fiji Is. This is the only group having raised spiral 

 sculpture. 



MELANESICA Pils. Shell rimate or umbilicate, ovate or 

 pyramidal, thin, corneous, greenish-yellow or pale brown, 

 uniform or obliquely streaked, not banded; aperture simple, 

 the peristome expanded or reflexed. Type P. turneri. Me- 

 lanesia, one species in Samoa. Species no. 59, 64 to 101. 



A large group of species simple in form and coloring. 



PALAOPARTULA Pils. Long forms with the spire 

 straightly conic, embryonic whorls high, the later ones 

 deeply engraved spirally, saccate below. Umbilical area 

 very ample, deeply perforate ; aperture unusually long, tooth- 

 less, the lip thin and very broadly reflexed. Type P. thetis. 

 Pelew Islands. Species 102 to 104. 



CAROLINELLA Pils. Perforate, rather solid, opaque and 

 ventricose species of dull or brown coloration, aperture large 

 and toothless. They have the appearance of ground snails. 

 Type P. guamensis. Caroline Islands. Species 105 to 107. 



MARIANELLA Pils. Shell ovate or inflated, with a small 

 umbilicus, the lip somewhat thickened within, parietal wall 

 plain or bearing a low nodule deep within; colors rather 

 bright. Type P. gibba. Marianne Is. Species 109 to 111. 



Geographic distribution of the Partulidce. 



Snails of this family are confined to the high islands of the 

 south and western Pacific. Not one species has ever been 

 found on an atoll or low island. In most island groups all 

 of the Partulae belong to a single stock, but in a few, notably 

 the Society and Samoan groups, several phyla are repre- 

 sented. Each of the subgenera or sections is confined to a 

 single archipelago, or to several adjacent island- groups; and 

 with the single exception of P. hyalina, no species is known 

 to inhabit more than one island-group, while a great majority 

 of the forms live on but one island. The distribution of 

 Partulas is remarkably consistent, and lends no support to the 

 idea that their dispersal has been due to drifting by ocean 

 currents, or any other "accidental" means of over-sea carri- 



