Shakespeare in snails
As you like it
Act IV Scene I Line 52
ROSALIND Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I   
  had as lief be wooed of a snail.   
ORLANDO  Of a snail?   
ROSALIND  Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he  
  carries his house on his head; a better jointure,   
  I think, than you make a woman: besides he brings   
  his destiny with him.   
ORLANDO  What's that?   
ROSALIND  Why, horns, which such as you are fain to be  
  beholding to your wives for: but he comes armed in   
  his fortune and prevents the slander of his wife 

King Lear
Act I Scene V Line 29
KING LEAR:Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell? 
FOOL: Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house.   
KING LEAR : Why?   
FOOL:  Why, to put his head in; not to give it away to his   
  daughters, and leave his horns without a case. 

Venus and Adonis
Or, as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,
Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain,
And there, all smother'd up, in shade doth sit,
Long after fearing to creep forth again

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