CHAPTER II. 
THE COLLECTIONS FROM TAHITI AND THEIR INVESTIGATION. 
THE SPECIES OF TAHITI. 
In the course of the present research, Tahiti has been visited four times for the 
collection and observation of the snails. In the hot and wetter season of 1906 
(February and March), all of the available time was devoted to this island alone. 
During June and July of the following year many more valleys were explored and 
some time was given to a first study of Moorea, although the field-work of 1907 was 
curtailed owing to illness caused by the tropical conditions. In 1908, during three 
months of the drier season, certain important valleys of Tahiti were revisited and 
a comprehensive survey was made of the Leeward Islands—Raiatea, Huahine, 
Tahaa, and Borabora. Finally in 1909, in the corresponding time of the year, the 
collections from Tahiti were again amplified by series from certain critical localities, 
while those from Moorea and Raiatea were also extended materially. In general, 
the Tahitian series fall into two seasonal groups, taken respectively during the wet 
and during the drier periods. 
The investigation of the rich material entails, in the first place, a close study 
of the species and varieties as they exist in the different localities; secondly, a com- 
parison of the present situation with what has been described for earlier times by 
other authors; the latter involves an acquaintance also with the authoritative col- 
lections in various museums, which has been gained through visits to the institutions 
at Honolulu, London, Paris, Berlin, Dresden, and elsewhere. One great difficulty 
is the confusion in taxonomy and identification that has resulted from inaccurate 
knowledge both of the localities from which shells have come and of the exact 
specimens that have served various authors as their types. The effect of this con- 
fusion is greatly reduced by relying upon the fundamental work of Garrett, to be 
described hereafter. 
The first Partule were collected by Captain Cook’s staff during his famous 
visits to Polynesia; they are Partula faba, described as Limax faba by Martyn in 
1784, and P. otaheitana, which was named Bulimus otaheitana by Bruguiére. The 
voyage of the Coquille yielded two species that were described by Lesson in 1830, 
viz, Partula lutea from Borabora and P. lineata, of which the latter was erroneously 
assigned to the Caroline Islands instead of to Moorea, its true habitat. Quoy and 
Gaimard in 1832 described certain dextral forms of P. otaheitana as Helix vanicor- 
ensis, but attributed them to Vanicoro, an island of Melanesia. Subsequently 
Cuming explored the Society and other islands and sent back his shells to be named 
by Broderip, Reeve, and Pfeiffer, but unfortunately the true localities were not 
given, or were wrongly stated in at least two-thirds of the cases. 
27 
