No 17.—The Slug.

THE SLUG IS a fascinating and intelligent creature, in many ways our equal and in some our superior. Slugs are most frequently found under rocks, having wandered from the vast underground civilizations they call home. In our above-ground world they are awkward and slow, but under the ground they build vast public-transit networks that carry them wherever they need to go quickly and efficiently. They spend their days attending concerts and visiting museums, sometimes pausing to take refreshment at small but sophisticated ethnic restaurants. At home, slugs are perfect exemplars of family life, raising their young to appreciate good taste and refinement in all aspects of slug culture. Politically, slugs are perfectly democratic, making all their important decisions in public meetings at which every motion is passed by consensus. Their architecture combines beauty and practicality in just proportion. In the mathematical sciences, slugs have learned to divide by zero without fear, freeing themselves from much of the superstitious baggage that hampers our own mathematicians. By special dispensation, they are exempt from original sin and its ravages on other forms of life. They have perfect taste in neckties. All these things are seldom obvious when one of them wanders above the ground, but a little careful observation corrects our mistaken impression of the slug and finds much to admire in it.

Allegorically, the slug represents the color Cyan.