These shells are of such a tender nature, and their colours so evanescent or so feebly fixed, that they almost constantly present a mutilated and bleached appearance. This is not, however, uniformly the case; we have very recently had an opportunity of inspecting several specimens of a moderate size, that were brought from China, and from these we perceive that the Wentletrap, when in fine order, is of a pale testaceous or rather fulvous hue; and inclining sometimes to yellowish. In some few specimens the ground colour of the shell, instead of being uniform, appears sprinkled with pallid spots and dots of a rounded form. Sometimes we are assured the colour inclines to rufous, or a reddish tint. Lamarck has this shell of a pale fulvous colour, with the ribs as usual, white, for he adopts this as part of the leading character of the species; his expression is “_pallide fulva_; _costis albis_.” The animal inhabitant of this shell has the head armed with two feelers, each ending in a setaceous thread or hair: the eye is placed upon the tentacula at the base of this thread or hair, and it has also a kind of trunk at the mouth, by means of which it searches for its food amongst the sand and weeds. It is supposed to be of a carnivorous nature, subsisting on other marine worms. It is considered rather as a littoral species, frequenting the little sandy bays and creeks among the breakers upon the lower parts of the sea shore, and is to be sought for with the most probability of success among the sea weeds or fuci that grow in the pools of water lying in these sunken rocks, because in such situations it is most likely to find protection against the intrusion of the boisterous element. Occasionally it is seen, though rarely, crawling on the sands at low water. In a natural classification of the shell tribe, should we ever arrive at an arrangement of Conchology, so perfect as to deserve that epithet, it would be a task of some difficulty to fix the precise station of the Wentletrap; for in the order of nature it presents anomalies which cannot easily be reconciled, and few authors are agreed upon this subject even in the artificial arrangements which they have been induced to adopt. Thus Rumpfius makes it a _Buccinum_, Davila a _Tuyau_, Argenville places it as a _Terebra_ (vis) and De Montfort Scalarus. In the Encyclopædia it is denominated Scalaria Pretiosa, and this name Lamarck retains.