Bette Siegel, age 12, of Ballston pa,., or her question:

The snake is streamlined from end to end. He has no fingers and toes, not even legs to poke out and spoil his smooth lines. And, of course, he has no outer ears. Birds do not have outer ears either, yet Mr. Robin Redbreast, for instance, can hear as well as you can and perhaps better. Outer ears merely trap sounds and send them inside to the inner ears which do the hearing. Birds, seals and other creatures with no outer ears do all their hearing with delicate inner ears.

Perhaps the snake also has a pair of sensitive inner ears. Not at a11. His ancestors may have had them, for the modern snake has the remnants of inner ears in his skull, But they are smothered in layers of bone and muscle, buried too deep to be of any use. Mr. Snake is stone deaf.