Another of the horned serpents, _Vipera cornuta_, has a cluster of leaf-like scales in three distinct pairs decorating its nose. These in the individual at the Zoological Gardens were particularly ear-like, and there was a remarkable peculiarity about them which was not found in either of the other horned specimens when dead. It was, that when one horn was moved divergently with the finger, its fellow moved _without being touched_ to correspond, and when let go _both_ sprang back to their original position. I at first was merely feeling and examining them when this singularly sympathetic movement arrested my attention. Then I tried it with each of the six scales or ‘horns’ several times, and always with the same result. Whichever one of them was held back, the opposite one diverged at a corresponding angle. [Illustration: 1. Natural position. 2. Three held back to their utmost. 3. Three held back partly.] Their natural position is nearly erect, and when one horn—say the longest to the right in Fig. 1—was pressed or pulled outwards, we might suppose that in a dead specimen it would drag its fellow that way also, should any movement at all take place; instead of which, it flew off in the opposite direction, like two negative or two positive poles repelling each other. If I pressed the three to the right as much as in the centre figure, the other three receded similarly to the left. Each pair acted in concert in this remarkable manner, or each two pairs, or all three pairs.