Helicidae: Land-snails...genital organs generally with a dart and multifid vesicles.

Because it was a state visit, the Chinese government insisted on a formal arrival ceremony in Beijing. We usually conduct these ceremonies on the White House South Lawn, and the Chinese usually conduct theirs in Tiananmen Square. Bill and I debated whether we should attend a ceremony in Tiananmen Square, where Chinese authorities had used tanks to forcibly suppress pro-democracy demonstrations in June of 1989. Bill didn’t want to appear to endorse China’s repressive tactics and violations of human rights, but he understood the square’s importance over centuries of Chinese history and agreed to respect the Chinese request.

The resulting package is part temporary and part permanent, part timely and part untimely, part targeted and part untargeted.

Essentially a hybrid between a howitzer and a gun, thus a gun-howitzer, the licorne was capable of a flatter trajectory and a longer range than the conventional howitzer.