PARTULA OTAHEITANA. I15 
The following brief outline and the census table of the species as it is repre- 
sented in my own collections (table 56), together with the simple outline chart 
(fig. 7), give the essential facts relating to the primary varieties of P. otaheitana and 
to their areas of occupation. 
sinistralis 
afjinis 
rubescens 
afinis ~ 
sinistrorsa 
Text-Fic. 7.—Chart showing the present distribution of the primary varieties of Partula otaheitana. 
A. The most generalized representatives of the species exist in Fautaua Valley, 
in the northern sector of Tahiti nui. This large and justly famed valley is near the 
harbor where the ships of the earlier voyagers remained at anchor, and there is 
little doubt that the first shells of the species came from this region, for the original 
description of Bruguiére applies more closely to the specimens from Fautaua than 
to those of any other colony. Sinistral examples are specified in his account and 
hence they are regarded as more typical than the dextral snails, but at the present 
time the latter almost equal the former in abundance. It is permissible to dis- 
tinguish the Fautaua colony as P. otaheitana otaheitana, and it is a curious coinci- 
dence that it is not only the first-discovered but also the most generalized group, 
standing virtually in an ancestral relation to all of the other varieties. This basic 
position is accorded on the following grounds: It includes both sinistral and dextral 
forms; members of each of these classes produce young of the contrasted coil; in 
each class the shells range from large to small; in each class, also, a wide range 
in color is exhibited, from light yellowish or whitish shells to reddish-yellow, 
