Fourth-grade students at Botelle School were invited to touch a boa constrictor as part of a live demonstration of the food pyramid presented on December 14 by Margery Winters of the Roaring Brook Nature Center. In a related experiment, Winters set a toad on the floor of the classroom and sprinkled worms in front of it. The students observed that the toad ate only the worms that were still wriggling, ignoring those that were still. This behavior, Winters pointed out, protects the toad from eating spoiled food.