Theres the old story of speed versus brains or the turtle versus the hare well this is my take. The snail too moved slowly along and as snails go he was the fastest there was,then came along a slug now slugs are not known to be pretty,hardly,and then heir speed ain't much better then snails but one day a slug moved in the area and challenge the snail. As far as races go this was pretty much a normal race indeed,but the terrain to a snail or slug it would not be,it was a mile long beach stretch in either direction, though their race was only measured by arm's length which was still pretty long indeed,though nothing was rocky or hard to traverse it was smooth,as the snail was moving ahead of the slug the slug seeing a shortcut took it but then unfortunately for the slug the shortcut was a trap set for it by a bird who in fact loved slugs they look like worms to him . so the morale of this story is,sometimes if you take shortcuts in getting somewhere or your in a hurry take your time slow and easy sometimes win the race then being in a hurry all the time .