The extraordinary form of this very rare and singular kind of Murex cannot fail to interest the curious observer. The shell is of the spiral kind, with an oval aperture; the head of the spire large or tumid, and the first or body whorl beset with four distinct longitudinal rows or series of elongated foliations or processes. These last mentioned appendages are flat and somewhat cylindrical from the base nearly to their summits, where they become cleft or furcate, expanding most commonly into two, sometimes three, or rarely four distinct little lobes, and the radiation of these process by which the exterior margin of the aperture is encircled, have a groove or canal extending from the margin of the lip to the cleft or lobate summits. The learned Seba, to whom this very remarkable shell, it appears, was known, has well observed in speaking of the Murices, which he describes, that this kind is more particularly distinguished by the greater disproportion of those advanced processes in comparison with the size of the body of the shell than any other of his species; so that their superior length in this respect was, in his opinion, to be considered truly characteristic of the species.* It is from these processes it may be also added, that this curious shell has been variously and not unfrequently fantastically designated by appellations that cannot very readily be reconciled in our ideas with any object they have been supposed to resemble, even admitting that latitude of fancy which may be tolerated when we are entirely aware that the assimilation is remote. Thus this shell has obtained in various languages names according with those of the Ragged Spike Whelk, the Stag’s Horn Whelk, the Skeleton, Water Trough, and others of no less vague import. The Least Ragged Whelk is a name assigned to it by our countryman Petiver: the Scorpion Shell is a very old name for it among the early collectors, it is the Murex Scorpio of Rumpfius. In France it was distinguished formerly by the name of _Patte de Crapaud_, (the Toad’s Foot) because, says the author of Davila’s Catalogue, besides the spires on the body, the exterior edge of the lip is bordered with others that are very large and flat at the extremity, and no doubt, for the same reason it is called by Seba _Bufonis Pedes_. It was known at that time also among the collectors in Holland by the name of the Stag’s Horn,[11] from a remote similitude which these processes are supposed to bear to the horns of that quadruped. And lastly, in conclusion it may be added, that for nearly half a century past it has been distinguished among the collectors of this country by a title not less whimsical, namely, the “Water Wheel,” from a fancied similitude the contour of the shell and its verticillation of processes bear to the circle and lamellar appendages or sweeps of a water wheel.