48 TERRESTRIAL MOLLUSCA INHABITING SOCIETY ISLANDS. 
white, is frequently pinky flesh-color. The prevailing colors are straw-yellow, reddish 
fulvous, light chestnut, frequently with the spire more or less tinted with reddish and 
often with longitudinal strigations. The spire is more or less produced, and the 
aperture varies some in size and shape. 
The shape of the shell varies from abbreviate-ovate to elongate-ovate, as the 
following measurements will show :— 
Length 21, diam. 10 mill. Dextral sp. 
Length 16, diam. 10 mill. Dextral sp. 
Length 20, diam. 10 mill. Sinistral sp. 
Length 16, diam. 9 mill. Sinistral sp. 
All the old authors refer to sinistral forms. The clongated dextral shells were 
described under the names Vanicorensis and Reeveana. 
In a valley about two miles west of Fautana, there exists in abundance the variety (?) 
lignaria, Pease, which, though described as dextral, is nevertheless very frequently 
sinistral. Though not attaining quite so large a size as the Fautana shells, it differs 
none in shape, but is usually darker colored and more strigated, as well as exhibiting 
one to three transverse reddish chestnut bands. The lip is always white, and the 
parictal tooth is very seldom absent. The inosculation with Otaheitana is so complete 
that it cannot be even separated as a well-marked variety. 
To the eastward between Fautana and Papinoo valley, a distance of about cight 
miles, there are three valleys, all inhabited by Pfeiffer’s amabilis, a sinistral form which 
has not a single feature to distinguish it from some of the large turreted Fautana 
shells. In the first valley, Pfeiffer’s species, though not abundant, were very fine 
specimens. ‘The next valley, known as Pirai, the metropolis of the small dextral P. 
Jilosa, which occupy the lower part of the valley, is, in the wpper part, which trends 
towards the headquarters of Otaheituna, inhabited by the sinistral amabilis. A few 
immature examples were found which were banded like fignaria. ‘The only dextral 
Partule taken in the two valleys were jilosu, attenuata and hyalina. 
In the next valley. called Haona, I found the dextral P. affinis abundant, and took 
a few of amabilis. 
Both Dr. Pfeiffer and Reeve described the latter species from specimens in the 
Cumingian collection, and both quote Anaa, a low coral island, as its habitat. Having 
resided about five months on that island, and searched all parts for shells, I did not 
find a single Purtula there, or on any other low coral island. Mr. Pease, in his list 
of Polynesian land shells, assigns it to Tutuila, one of the Samoa or Navigator 
Islands, but on what authority Ido not know. The type is purely Tahitian. Dr. 
Paetel and Dr. Hartman are the only authors who give the correct locality. Though 
neither Pfeiffer nor Reeve allude to a parietal tooth, it is, however, very frequently 
present. 
Pease’s affinis, which cannot be separated from some of the small abbreviated 
