新概念第三册Lesson 54

Lesson 54: Instinct or cleverness Was the writer successful in protecting his peach tree? Why not? We have been brought up to fear insects. We regard them as unnecessary creatures that do more harm than good. We continually wage war on them, for they contaminate our food, carry diseases, or devour our crops. They sting or bite without provocation; they fly uninvited into our rooms on summer nights, or beat agaist our lighted windows. We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths. Reading about them increases our understanding without dispelling our fears.Knowing that the industrious ant lives in a highly organized society does nothing to prevent us from being filled with revulsion when we find hordes of them crawling over a carefully prepared picnic lunch. No matter how much we like honey, or how much we have read about the uncanny sense of direction which bees possess, we have a horror of being stung. Most of our fears are unreasonable, but they are impossible to erase. At the same time, however, insects are strangely fascinating. We enjoy reading about them, especially when we find that, like the praying mantis, they lead perfectly horrible lives. ​We enjoy staring at them, entranced as they go about their business, unaware (we hope) of our presence. 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?     Last summer I spent days in the garden watching thousands of ants crawling up the trunk of my prize peach tree. The tree has grown against a warm wall on a sheltered side of the house. I am especially proud of it, not only because it has survived several severe winters, but because it occasionally produces luscious peaches.During the summer, I noticed that the leaves of the tree were beginning to wither. Clusters of tiny insects called aphids were to be found on the underside of the leaves. They were visited by a large colony of ants which obtained a sort of honey from them. I immediately embarked on an experiment which, even though if failed to get rid of the ants, kept me fascinated for twenty-four hours. I bound the base of the tree with sticky tape, making it impossible for the ants to reach the aphids. The tape was so stick that they did not dare to cross it. For a long time. I watched them scurrying around the base of the tree in bewilderment. New words and expressions: insect. n.昆虫 wage. v.进行(斗争) contaminate. v. 弄脏 provocation. n.惹怒 spider. n.蜘蛛 wasp. n.黄蜂 moth..n.飞蛾 ant. n.蚂蚁 revulsion. n. 厌恶 horde. n.群 uncanny. adj.神秘的 不可思议的 erase. v.擦 抹去 praying mantis. 螳螂 entranced. adj. 出神的 beetle. n.甲虫 sheltered. adj. 伤不着的 无危险的 luscious. adj.甘美的 cluster. n.一簌 aphid. n.蚜虫 underside. n.底面 下侧 colony. n. 一群 sticky. adj.粘的 scurry. v.小步跑 swarm. v. 聚集 ingenuity. n.机灵 ​