206 PARTULA, MOOREA. 



1866, p. 202; 1867, p. 81, pi. 1, fig. 11. SCHMELTZ, Cat. 

 Mus. Godeff., v, p. 92. PFEIFFER, Mon. Hel., viii, p. 206. 

 Partula decussatuLa CARPENTER (not of Pfeiffer), Proc. ZooL 

 Soc., 1864, p. 675. P. peraffinis Pse. MS., according to Hart- 

 man. 



The typical form is tawny brown with two widely separ- 

 ated white bands as shown in figures 15, 16 of pi. 28. There- 

 are also often some pale oblique streaks. The shape, as 

 (iarrett writes, ' * varies from iabbreviate-ovate to elongate- 

 ovate, more or less solid, scarcely shining, smooth or wrin- 

 kled with incremental striae, and the spiral incised lines are 

 very fine, and crowded on all the whorls. The spire is more 

 or less produced half the length of the shell, sometimes 

 shorter or a trifle longer. The last wjiorl is frequently com- 

 pressed in the back and right side, which gives it a faintly 

 biangular appearance. The peristome is more or less ex- 

 panded, sometimes considerably so, moderately thick, slant- 

 ing and labiated within. Columellar lip more or less tor- 

 tuous, abruptly receding above, which gives it a nodulous ap- 

 pearance. About one in a hundred exhibits the parietal 

 tooth. The color is also variable : white, straw-yellow, lemon- 

 yellow, light orange, corneous, fulvous, various shades of 

 brown, sometimes with darker strigations, and frequently 

 spirally banded. The most common style of fasciation con- 

 sists of from one to four narrow, more or less broken, fulvous. 

 or fulvous-brown bands on the body-whorl. Fulvous-brown 

 examples, with two or three pale bands, are not so common. 

 The last appears to be Moreh's type, which he incorrectly as- 

 signs to the Viti Islands. ' ' 



11 The metropolis of this truly protean species is in a very 

 large semicircular valley on the north coast of Moorea, where 

 it occurs in prodigious numbers on the foliage of bushes. In 

 the western part ol the same valley, where it exhibits less 

 variation, it gradually intergrades with the form which has 

 been distributed under the name of nucleola Pease, which 

 has its headquarters in a small, but isolated, valley about 

 two miles west of Opunohu. 



