« Shell umbilicate or perforate, conical, solid, whitish, radiately maculated above, dotted beneath with red or rich brown ; spire conical, acuminate, somewhat scalariform ; whorls about 7, very convex, spirally lirate, radiately costate above, bicarinated at the periphery, and encircled by a deep canal ; base convex, bearing about 5 spiral lirae ; aperture oblique, rounded, columella sinuous in the middle […], arcuate above ; umbilicus broad and funnel-shaped, or narrow and almost closed. […] Easily recognized by the turrited, acuminate spire and the deep peripheral groove, […] and lacks the central riblet. Several varieties (lutea, nigra, rubra, albo-sordida and varia, all of Scacchi) have been founded upon color mutations – the shell being subject to the same variations in hue as G. magus. » – op. cit. p.199.