Prostitution in Overseas France were female, 20% male and 50% transsexual (known as "raerae"). When Captain Samuel Wallis discovered Tahiti in 1767, he traded with the islanders for fresh provisions. The Polynesians had no source of iron, and the women sold sex for nails. Wallis had to ban shore leave for the crew for fear of the ship collapsing as so many nails had been removed from the structure. When Captain Cook arrived in 1769, the price had risen from one nail to three nails. By the time of Cook's 3rd visit in 1774, the currency had changed from nails to European clothes and
Tahiti rail accounts, the Tahiti rail was sufficiently well documented for there to be no doubt that it existed. The Tahiti rail has historically been confused with the extant Tongan subspecies of the buff-banded rail, "Gallirallus philippensis ecaudatus", which was also illustrated and described by the Forsters. In his 1783 description of the Tongan bird (wherein it was named "Rallus eucaudata"), the English ornithologist John Frederick Miller erroneously gave its locality as Tahiti, which led the Tahiti rail to be regarded as a junior synonym of the extant bird. He based his description on Forster's illustration (plate no.127) of the Tongan bird,