Linda Kay Webb, age 9 of Shreveport, La., for her question:

Are snakes intelligent?

Snakes have been tested by experts to see how sm art they are. The graceful animals did not do so well. It was found that a Mama snake did no better than her newly hatched youngsters. No snake, it seems, can learn very much from experience.

As a rule, n baby snake knows as much as he will ever know. He is born able to take care of himself from the first day of life. Strong instincts tell him what to do and he obeys them. So actually he has no need to learn anything more. He goes through life with no more sense than he was born with.