For example, there are my friends the missel-thrushes, who have just lately returned for the winter months to their commodious4 quarters in the hanger5 below me. A week or two since I noticed them flying home to the woods and parks in their thousands. They have been spending the summer months as usual on their moors6 in Norway; but food having lately begun to fail them on the fjelds, they are coming back now in great straggling flocks to their English residences. For, unlike the song-thrush, who is one of their closest and most distinguished7 relations, they stay with us in the winter only, and move north again betimes in late spring, as soon as their broods are reared and whortleberries are getting plentiful8 in the northern moorlands.
Questions of commissariat, indeed, have most to do with the migrations9 of birds; it is not weather, as weather, but the condition of the food-supply that mainly regulates their periodical movements. Now, the missel-thrush is almost entirely10 vegetarian11 in his habits; whereas his cousin, the song-thrush, subsists12 for the most part on a regimen of worms and other miscellaneous unsavoury animals. Hence it follows, of course, that the missel-thrush must needs go where berries are in season; he follows them closely across the face of Europe, from province to province. He cannot stand great cold, however, and often freezes to death in severe winters; which is another reason why he comes south for warmth when Norwegian hills rise white with snow, and fjords are blocked with ice, and crystal-frosted pine-trees glisten13 in the sun with innumerable diamonds. Family parties of missel-thrushes may be seen in our fields the whole winter through; but they are timid and wary14, and fly off in a body at the faintest suspicion of coming danger. You can tell them as they rise on the wing by the conspicuous15 white patch under the pinions16, which seems, like the rabbit’s tail, to act as a danger-signal to the rest of the household. No sooner does one of them scent17 a stranger afar off than he rises silently, and the others, alarmed by his contagious18 fear, rise after him one by one in a picturesque19 line, somewhat as one often sees in the case of wild-fowl. In February and March your missel-thrush begins to build in the hawthorns20 and apple-trees; and the moment his nestlings are strong enough of wing to buffet21 the strong winds of the German Ocean, the whole family flits north again to its Norwegian estate for the cloudberry season. The nests, however, though built somewhat overtly22 on bare and leafless boughs24, are most difficult to find; for the cunning little architects, knowing well they will get no protection from a canopy25 of foliage26, conceal27 their homes adroitly28 with an outer coat of woven moss29 and lichen30, which so harmonizes with the grey and lichen-covered branches around them as to make them almost indistinguishable. The eggs are stone-grey, daintily spotted31 and blotched with round blobs of brown ochre.
But by far the most interesting point about the missel-thrush is that curious connection between the bird and the mistletoe which was observed so long since even by our prehistoric32 ancestors as to have given the species its vernacular33 name in all European languages. Turdus viscivorus—the mistletoe-eating thrush—is Linn?us’s scientific Latin title for the creature, and he well deserves it. He is almost or altogether the only bird that will eat the mistletoe berries, and on him accordingly the mistletoe depends for the dispersal of its seeds and the propagation of its mystic parasitic34 seedlings35. The berries themselves are very “viscid,” as we say—the word itself being derived36 from the Latin name of mistletoe—and the seeds cling close, as if gummed or glued, to the bird’s beak37 and feet in a disagreeable fashion. So, to get rid of them, he alights on an apple-tree or a poplar, which are his favourite perches38, betakes him at once to an angle of a bough23, and rubs off the annoying and sticky objects in the fork of the branches. There they fasten themselves and germinate40. Now, this arrangement exactly suits the mistletoe, for apple and poplar are just the two trees best adapted for its depredations41, while a fork in a bough is the one likely place where it has a chance of rooting itself. A great many unobservant people imagine to-day that mistletoe grows chiefly on oaks, because they have heard about the sanctity of oak-grown mistletoes in the eyes of the Druids. The real fact is, as you may learn for yourself if you will look at nature instead of merely reading about it at second or third hand, that mistletoe on an oak-tree is extremely rare; the Druids prized it because they thought it the life or soul of the oak, which was the sacred tree of Celtic mythology42. I notice, indeed, that missel-thrushes very seldom perch39 on oaks; and even when they do by chance dislodge a stray seed of mistletoe on one, it has difficulty in fixing its young suckers on the alien bark, and draining the tree’s nutritious43 juices. The truth is, the mistletoe and the missel-thrush are developed for one another; they have struck up an alliance from time immemorial on terms of mutual44 service and accommodation.
点击收听单词发音
1 pry | |
vi.窥(刺)探,打听;vt.撬动(开,起) | |
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2 hibernate | |
v.冬眠,蛰伏 | |
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3 scarcity | |
n.缺乏,不足,萧条 | |
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4 commodious | |
adj.宽敞的;使用方便的 | |
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5 hanger | |
n.吊架,吊轴承;挂钩 | |
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6 moors | |
v.停泊,系泊(船只)( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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7 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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8 plentiful | |
adj.富裕的,丰富的 | |
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9 migrations | |
n.迁移,移居( migration的名词复数 ) | |
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10 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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11 vegetarian | |
n.素食者;adj.素食的 | |
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12 subsists | |
v.(靠很少的钱或食物)维持生活,生存下去( subsist的第三人称单数 ) | |
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13 glisten | |
vi.(光洁或湿润表面等)闪闪发光,闪闪发亮 | |
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14 wary | |
adj.谨慎的,机警的,小心的 | |
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15 conspicuous | |
adj.明眼的,惹人注目的;炫耀的,摆阔气的 | |
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16 pinions | |
v.抓住[捆住](双臂)( pinion的第三人称单数 ) | |
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17 scent | |
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉 | |
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18 contagious | |
adj.传染性的,有感染力的 | |
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19 picturesque | |
adj.美丽如画的,(语言)生动的,绘声绘色的 | |
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20 hawthorns | |
n.山楂树( hawthorn的名词复数 ) | |
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21 buffet | |
n.自助餐;饮食柜台;餐台 | |
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22 overtly | |
ad.公开地 | |
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23 bough | |
n.大树枝,主枝 | |
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24 boughs | |
大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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25 canopy | |
n.天篷,遮篷 | |
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26 foliage | |
n.叶子,树叶,簇叶 | |
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27 conceal | |
v.隐藏,隐瞒,隐蔽 | |
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28 adroitly | |
adv.熟练地,敏捷地 | |
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29 moss | |
n.苔,藓,地衣 | |
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30 lichen | |
n.地衣, 青苔 | |
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31 spotted | |
adj.有斑点的,斑纹的,弄污了的 | |
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32 prehistoric | |
adj.(有记载的)历史以前的,史前的,古老的 | |
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33 vernacular | |
adj.地方的,用地方语写成的;n.白话;行话;本国语;动植物的俗名 | |
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34 parasitic | |
adj.寄生的 | |
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35 seedlings | |
n.刚出芽的幼苗( seedling的名词复数 ) | |
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36 derived | |
vi.起源;由来;衍生;导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 );(从…中)得到获得;源于;(从…中)提取 | |
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37 beak | |
n.鸟嘴,茶壶嘴,钩形鼻 | |
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38 perches | |
栖息处( perch的名词复数 ); 栖枝; 高处; 鲈鱼 | |
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39 perch | |
n.栖木,高位,杆;v.栖息,就位,位于 | |
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40 germinate | |
v.发芽;发生;发展 | |
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41 depredations | |
n.劫掠,毁坏( depredation的名词复数 ) | |
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42 mythology | |
n.神话,神话学,神话集 | |
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43 nutritious | |
adj.有营养的,营养价值高的 | |
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44 mutual | |
adj.相互的,彼此的;共同的,共有的 | |
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