所属专辑:新版新概念英语第三册(英音)
歌手: 朗文
时长: 03:56
--- lesson 54 instinct or cleverness?[00:00:01]
--- listen to the tape then answer the question below.[00:00:07]
--- was the writer successful in protecting his peach tree? why not?[00:00:12]
we have been brought up to fear insects.[00:00:20]
we regard them as unnecessary creatures that do more harm than good.[00:00:23]
we continually wage war on them, for they contaminate our food, carry diseases, or devour our crops.[00:00:28]
they sting or bite without provocation;[00:00:36]
they fly uninvited into our rooms on summer nights, or beat against our lighted windows.[00:00:39]
we live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths.[00:00:46]
reading about them increases our understanding without dispelling our fears.[00:00:55]
knowing that the industrious ant lives in a highly organized society does nothing to prevent us from being filled with revulsion[00:01:00]
when we find hordes of them crawling over a carefully prepared picnic lunch.^(.. ..[00:01:09]
no matter how much we like honey, or how much we have read about the uncanny sense of direction which bees possess,[00:01:14]
we have a horror of being stung.[00:01:23]
most of our fears are unreasonable, but they are impossible to erase.[00:01:25]
at the same time, however, insects are strangely fascinating.[00:01:31]
we enjoy reading about them, especially when we find that, like the praying mantis, they lead perfectly horrible lives.[00:01:36]
we enjoy staring at them, entranced as they go about their business, unaware (we hope) of our presence.[00:01:45]
who has not stood in awe at the sight of a spider pouncing on a fly, or a column of ants triumphantly bearing home an enormous dead beetle?[00:01:53]
last summer i spent days in the garden watching thousands of ants crawling up the trunk of my prize peach tree.[00:02:03]
the tree has grown against a warm wall on a sheltered side of the house.[00:02:12]
i am especially proud of it, not only because it has survived several severe winters, but because it occasionally produces luscious peaches.[00:02:16]
during the summer, i noticed that the leaves of the tree were beginning to wither.[00:02:26]
clusters of tiny insects called aphids were to be found on the underside of the leaves.[00:02:32]
they were visited by a large colony of ants which obtained a sort of honey from them.[00:02:38]
i immediately embarked on an experiment which, even though it failed to get rid of the ants, kept me fascinated for twenty-four hours.[00:02:44]
i bound the base of the tree with sticky tape, making it impossible for the ants to reach the aphids.[00:02:53]
the tape was so sticky that they did not dare to cross it.[00:03:00]
for a long time. i watched them scurrying around the base of the tree in bewilderment.[00:03:03]
i even went out at midnight with a torch and noted with satisfaction (and surprise) that the ants were still swarming around the sticky tape without being able to do anything about it.[00:03:09]
i got up early next morning hoping to find that the ants had given up in despair.[00:03:21]
instead, i saw that they had discovered a new route.[00:03:27]
they were climbing up the wall of the house and then on to the leaves of the tree.[00:03:31]
i realized sadly that i had been completely defeated by their ingenuity.[00:03:37]
the ants had been quick to find an answer to my thoroughly unscientific methods![00:03:42]