All along the Nile and the Red Sea coast is found the horned viper which lives buried wormlike in the sand with only its eyes and the upper part of its head visible. Its horns are said to look like barley grains and to entice birds. It is found often in rodent holes. This horned viper is extremely tenacious of life. It has been kept alive in a glass jar, without food, for two years. It can hurl itself forward as much as three feet. A full-grown specimen is about 18 inches long and quite poisonous but Egyptian magicians have been seen eating the animals like stalks of celery. _Flying Snakes, Frogs and Toads_ There are flying snakes as well as flying frogs and toads. Such reptiles and amphibians should be considered expert parachutists rather than actual flyers. The tree snakes dendrolaphis and chrysopelea leap from high limbs, stretched out lengthwise and both flatten and broaden the body so that it presents a concave surface. They glide to earth slowly, at an angle to the vertical, and land apparently without injury. Frogs of some species have enormous webs between the fingers and toes which serve as parachutes. A Brazilian tree frog has been observed to drop from an altitude of 100 feet and land 90 feet away uninjured. Since other frogs of the same size were killed when dropped vertically, parachuting must be considered a distinct trait of this particular species, developed over many generations of life in treetops. In the course of experiments a South Carolina lizard, frequenter of bushes and fences, landed ten to twelve feet away from the place where it was dropped, at a height of 37 feet, and hopped away unhurt. It took a rigid posture when dropped, limbs outstretched and stomach taut. It fell vertically a third of the distance to the ground and then started to glide. A lizard of another species from the same habit wriggled all the way down. _Eagles Build Log Cabin Nests_ The white-headed eagle became the national bird of the United States by act of Congress on June 20, 1782. For nearly two centuries it has remained the American symbol of fearlessness and freedom. The same bird—Haleoletus leucocephalus and not the more familiar golden eagle found in the West—had been the supreme totem animal of the Six Nations of the Iroquois from whom many institutions of the new republic indirectly may have been derived. This eagle still is fairly abundant in the fringes of forest around the Great Lakes, its fishing grounds. Its nest, almost always at the top of a tall sycamore or hickory which is dead or dying, is almost literally a log cabin. The bird sometimes uses sticks six feet long for the outer walls. It grasps large dead branches in its talons, breaks them off by sheer force, and flies away with them. A recently observed nest was nine feet high and six feet in diameter. _The Predatory Mantid_