nduce them to put out their horns--a couplet, such as the
following, being repeated on the occasion:

"Peer out, peer out, peer out of your hole,
Or else I'll beat you as black as a coal."

In Scotland, it is regarded as a token of fine weather if the snail obey
the command and put out its horn:[447]

"Snailie, snailie, shoot out your horn,
And tell us if it will be a bonnie day the morn."

[447] See "English Folk-Lore," 1878, p. 120.

Shakespeare alludes to snail-charming in the "Merry Wives of Windsor"
(iv. 2), where Mrs. Page says of Mrs. Ford's husband, he "so buffets
himself on the forehead, crying, _Peer out! peer out!_ that any madness
I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this
his distemper he is in now." In "Comedy of Errors" (ii. 2), the snail is
used to denote a lazy person.

_Tiger._ It was an ancient belief that this animal roared and raged most
furiously in stormy and high winds--a piece of folk-lore alluded to in
"Troilus and Cressida" (i. 3), by Nestor, who says:

"The herd hath more annoyance by the breese
Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,
And flies fled under shade, why then, the thing of courage,
As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathize."

_Unicorn._ In "Julius Caesar" (ii. 1) Decius tells how "unicorns may be
betray'd with trees," alluding to their traditionary mode of capture.
They are reported to have been taken by one who, running behind a tree,
eluded the violent push the animal was making at him, so that his horn
spent its force on the trunk, and stuck fast, detaining the animal till
he was despatched by the hunter.[448] In Topsell's "History of Beasts"
(1658, p. 557), we read of the unicorn: "He is an enemy to the lions,
wherefore, as soon as ever a lion seeth a unicorn, he runneth to a tree
for succour, that so when the unicorn maketh force at him, he may not
only avoid his horn, but also destroy him; for the unicorn, in the
swiftness of his course, runneth against the tree, wherein his sharp
horn sticketh fast, that when the lion seeth the unicorn fastened by the
horn, without all danger he falleth upon him and killeth him." With this
passage we may compare the following from Spenser's "Fairy Queen" (bk.
ii. canto 5):

"Like as a lyon, whose imperiall power
A prowd rebellious unicorn defyes,
T' avoide the rash assault and wrathful stowre