Chapter 56

[Footnote 67: More than 470 species of land snails of a single genus, _Achatinella_, are to be found in the mountains of Hawaii, a fact of marked interest to science in observing environmental effect upon the differentiation of species. One of these the natives call _pupu kani oi_ or "shrill voiced snail," averring that a certain cricketlike chirp that rings through the stillness of the almost insectless valleys is the voice of this particular species. Emerson says that the name _kahuli_ is applied to the land snail to describe the peculiar tilting motion as the snail crawls first to one side and then to the other of the leaf. He quotes a little song that runs:

Kahuli aku, kahuli mai, Kahuli lei ula, lei akolea. Kolea, kolea, e kii ka wai, Wai akolea.

Tilting this way and that Tilts the red fern-plume. Plover, plover, bring me dew, Dew from the fern-plume.]

[Footnote 68: This incident is unsatisfactorily treated. We never know how Waka circumvented Malio and restored her grandchild to the husband designed for her. The whole thing sounds like a dramatic innovation with farcical import, which appeared in the tale without motivation for the reason that it had none in its inception. The oral narrator is rather an actor than a composer; he may have introduced this episode as a surprise, and its success as farce perpetuated it as romance.]