Not one of any of those various appellations, it must be confessed, appear so applicable and well chosen as to supersede the propriety of introducing any other that might be deemed tolerably appropriate, but upon the whole the species and varieties which it embraces have been so long known by the name of the Scorpion Shell, that there can be no great impropriety in allowing it to remain under that name: we have for our example the authority of Rumpfius, and the sanction of Linnæus throughout all his works; and in the Gmelinian System it also stands under the name of Murex Scorpio. The appellation of the Stag’s Horn Murex, in conformity with the epithet assigned to it by the old French writers “_bois de cerf_,” is not altogether inappropriate, the elongated processes have much the appearance of the antlers of the stag, in the first stages of their growth; or considered in the aggregate, the shell presents a number of ramose processes like the horns of the Stag or the Rein Deer, and some other quadrupeds of the Cervine tribe; a characteristic feature that may perhaps justify the appellation. There are several varieties of this remarkable shell, some of which might at the first view be considered as distinct species, and in reality have been occasionally arranged as such by collectors. These upon the most attentive comparison do not, however, appear to differ specifically, notwithstanding the differences in point of colour are very striking. One variety rather exceeds the rest in size, and is of a deep testaceous or tawny brown colour, or rather inclining to a chesnut hue: we have seen it of a tawny tint with darker splashes upon the transverse ribs, particularly on the body and the tumid whorl of the spire. Occasionally this shell also occurs of a deep or Ethiopian blackness; this kind is extremely rare. The white variety occurs more frequently, but is, nevertheless, uncommon in comparison with the brown or testaceous kind: two examples of the white variety, clouded with yellow, appears to have occurred in the celebrated cabinet of the French collector Davilla, about the year 1776. He distinguishes them by the title of “deux petites _epineuses_,” and tells us they have six longitudinal sides like the “_rameuses_,” which are also named “Pattes de crapaud,” an epithet by which we are well aware the Linnæan Murex Scorpio was discriminated, and which therefore leads to a conclusion that the “epineuses” of a white colour, clouded with yellow, which that cabinet contained, were not specifically distinct from the shell at present under our consideration. When extremely fine the white variety of this shell is usually very delicately tinged with violet in all its shades and transitions of light.