Shell small, narrowly ovate, rather solid. Colour pale buff, with occasionally a narrow spiral orange line, chocolate at the insertion of the lip and the tip of the canal. Whorls six, the first two and a half composing the protoconch, the rest constricted at the suture. Sculpture : radial ribs, about fourteen to the whorl, run from base to suture, over-riding both ribs and interstices are polished cords, ten on the last whorl, and five on the penultimate; in the meshes formed by the intersection of ribs and cords are fine, crowded, spiral hair-lines, as if neatly brushed. Canal short, a little recurved. Aperture slightly ascending, varix broad and projecting, outer lip with six interior denticles. Length, 5,7; breadth, 3 mm.
Hab.—Several specimens, Torres Straits, 12 fathoms; another, Darnley Island, 30 fathoms, J. Brazier.
N. compacta Angas, has a general resemblance to the novelty, but is half as long again, has a more prominent sculpture, and lacks the tine hair-lines of the secondary sculpture of N. pilata.