_General Appearance._--Shape conical, either steep or considerably depressed; sometimes tubular; orifice either nearly entire or deeply toothed, not large, varying from rhomboidal to rounded-trigonal. Surface of shell smooth, never ribbed, generally naked, but occasionally the yellowish epidermis is persistent; in the same individual, I have seen all the lower part of the shell thus covered and the upper part naked, the line of separation being defined. The _colour_ varies much, even sometimes considerably on the same individual; generally white or pale gray, with dull violet-coloured, longitudinal, moderately broad stripes; these stripes are sometimes equidistant, but more usually they are arranged so as to leave broad white spaces; the stripes fade away by endless variations, the edges of the compartments and the carinal end of the shell longest retaining any colour, until we have a uniformly white shell, generally covered with a yellowish epidermis; or the white is longitudinally marked with hyaline lines; this latter variety has a very peculiar aspect, and I did not doubt it was specifically distinct, until, in a number of specimens on a ship from the West Indies, I got the most perfect series, and another scarcely less perfect series from the Mediterranean, graduating into common coloured varieties. Rarely the dull violet or purple stripes become approximate and dark, so that the whole shell is tinted of a brownish slate-colour, occasionally freckled with white. Again, we have another set of very pretty varieties, with a white or very pale pink ground, with either narrow bright pink or broad pinkish-purple stripes. Again, I have seen numerous specimens of a variety, _var. Stutsburi_, from the west coast of Africa, in which the upper part of the shell is white, and the lower part shaded with pinkish or dark purple approximate stripes, which often become confluent; in one group, the whole shell being thus uniformly coloured, without any vestige of stripes. I have seen another group from an unknown locality, in which the lower part of the shell was uniformly blueish-gray. A variety from Australia has narrow approximate dark claret-coloured stripes, transversely freckled with white. Lastly, in the variety _cirratus_, the whole shell is very pale purplish-brown, with indistinct longitudinal brownish stripes, transversely freckled with white lines. I considered this as a distinct species, until quite lately finding forms which I could not possibly determine whether to class as _B. cirratus_ or _amphitrite_.