I had always had a great liking12 for the study of material plants and animals, and I was so much interested in the occurrence of this novel phenomenon—the growth and development of an oceanic island before my very eyes—that I determined13 to devote the next few thousand centuries or so of my ?onian existence to watching the course of its gradual evolution.
If I trusted to unaided memory, however, for my dates and facts, I might perhaps at this distance of time be uncertain whether the moment was really what I have roughly given, within a geological age or two, the period of the Mid-Miocene. But existing remains14 on one of the islands constituting my group (now called in your new-fangled terminology15 Santa Maria) help me to fix with comparative certainty the precise epoch16 of their original upheaval. For these remains, still in evidence on the spot, consist of a few small marine1 deposits of Upper Miocene age; and I recollect17 distinctly that after the main group had been for some time raised above the surface of the ocean, and after sand and streams had formed a small sedimentary deposit containing Upper Miocene fossils beneath the shoal water surrounding the main group, a slight change of level occurred, during which this minor18 island was pushed up with the Miocene deposits on its shoulders, as a sort of natural memorandum19 to assist my random20 scientific recollections. With that solitary21 exception, however, the entire group remains essentially22 volcanic in its composition, exactly as it was when I first saw its youthful craters23 and its red-hot ash-cones pushed gradually up, century after century, from the deep blue waters of the Mid-Miocene ocean.
All round my islands the Atlantic then, as now, had a depth, as I said before, of two thousand fathoms; indeed, in some parts between the group and Portugal the plummet24 of your human navigators finds no bottom, I have often heard them say, till it reaches 2,500; and out of this profound sea-bed the volcanic energies pushed up my islands as a small submarine mountain range, whose topmost summits alone stood out bit by bit above the level of the surrounding sea. One of them, the most abrupt25 and cone-like, by name now Pico, rises to this day, a magnificent sight, sheer seven thousand feet into the sky from the placid26 sheet that girds it round on every side. You creatures of to-day, approaching it in one of your clumsy new-fashioned fire-driven canoes that you call steamers, must admire immensely its conical peak, as it stands out silhouetted27 against the glowing horizon in the deep red glare of a sub-tropical Atlantic sunset.
But when I, from my solitary aerial perch28, saw my islands rise bare and massive first from the water's edge, the earliest idea that occurred to me as an investigator of nature was simply this: how will they ever get clad with soil and herbage and living creatures? So naked and barren were their black crags and rocks of volcanic slag29, that I could hardly conceive how they could ever come to resemble the other smiling oceanic islands which I looked down upon in my flight from day to day over so many wide and scattered30 oceans. I set myself to watch, accordingly, whence they would derive31 the first seeds of life, and what changes would take place under dint32 of time upon their desolate33 surface.
For a long epoch, while the mountains were still rising in their active volcanic state, I saw but little evidence of a marked sort of the growth of living creatures upon their loose piles of pumice. Gradually, however, I observed that spores34 of lichens35, blown towards them by the wind, were beginning to sprout36 upon the more settled rocks, and to discolour the surface in places with grey and yellow patches. Bit by bit, as rain fell upon the new-born hills, it brought down from their weathered summits sand and mud, which the torrents37 ground small and deposited in little hollows in the valleys; and at last something like earth was found at certain spots, on which seeds, if there had been any, might doubtless have rooted and flourished exceedingly.
My primitive38 idea, as I watched my islands in this their almost lifeless condition, was that the Gulf39 Stream and the trade winds from America would bring the earliest higher plants and animals to our shores. But in this I soon found I was quite mistaken. The distance to be traversed was so great, and the current so slow, that the few seeds or germs of American species cast up upon the shore from time to time were mostly far too old and water-logged to show signs of life in such ungenial conditions. It was from the nearer coasts of Europe, on the contrary, that our earliest colonists41 seemed to come. Though the prevalent winds set from the west, more violent storms reached us occasionally from the eastward42 direction; and these, blowing from Europe, which lay so much closer to our group, were far more likely to bring with them by waves or wind some waifs and strays of the European fauna43 and flora44.
I well remember the first of these great storms that produced any distinct impression on my islands. The plants that followed in its wake were a few small ferns, whose light spores were more readily carried on the breeze than any regular seeds of flowering plants. For a month or two nothing very marked occurred in the way of change, but slowly the spores rooted, and soon produced a small crop of ferns, which, finding the ground unoccupied, spread when once fairly started with extraordinary rapidity, till they covered all the suitable positions throughout the islands.
For the most part, however, additions to the flora, and still more to the fauna, were very gradually made; so much so that most of the species now found in the group did not arrive there till after the end of the Glacial epoch, and belong essentially to the modern European assemblage of plants and animals. This was partly because the islands themselves were surrounded by pack-ice during that chilly45 period, which interrupted for a time the course of my experiment. It was interesting, too, after the ice cleared away, to note what kinds could manage by stray accidents to cross the ocean with a fair chance of sprouting46 or hatching out on the new soil, and which were totally unable by original constitution to survive the ordeal47 of immersion48 in the sea. For instance, I looked anxiously at first for the arrival of some casual acorn49 or some floating filbert, which might stock my islands with waving greenery of oaks and hazel bushes. But I gradually discovered, in the course of a few centuries, that these heavy nuts never floated securely so far as the outskirts50 of my little archipelago; and that consequently no chestnuts51, apple trees, beeches52, alders53, larches54, or pines ever came to diversify55 my island valleys. The seeds that did really reach us from time to time belonged rather to one or other of four special classes. Either they were very small and light, like the spores of ferns, fungi56, and club-mosses57; or they were winged and feathery, like dandelion and thistle-down; or they were the stones of fruits that are eaten by birds, like rose-hips and hawthorn58; or they were chaffy59 grains, enclosed in papery scales, like grasses and sedges, of a kind well adapted to be readily borne on the surface of the water. In all these ways new plants did really get wafted60 by slow degrees to the islands; and if they were of kinds adapted to the climate they grew and flourished, living down the first growth of ferns and flowerless herbs in the rich valleys.
The time which it took to people my archipelago with these various plants was, of course, when judged by your human standards, immensely long, as often the group received only a single new addition in the lapse61 of two or three centuries. But I noticed one very curious result of this haphazard62 and lengthy63 mode of stocking the country: some of the plants which arrived the earliest, having the coast all clear to themselves, free from the fierce competition to which they had always been exposed on the mainland of Europe, began to sport a great deal in various directions, and being acted upon here by new conditions, soon assumed under stress of natural selection totally distinct specific forms. (You see, I have quite mastered your best modern scientific vocabulary.) For instance, there were at first no insects of any sort on the islands; and so those plants which in Europe depended for their fertilisation upon bees or butterflies had here either to adapt themselves somehow to the wind as a carrier of their pollen64 or else to die out for want of crossing. Again, the number of enemies being reduced to a minimum, these early plants tended to lose various defences or protections they had acquired on the mainland against slugs or ants, and so to become different in a corresponding degree from their European ancestors. The consequence was that by the time you men first discovered the archipelago no fewer than forty kinds of plants had so far diverged65 from the parent forms in Europe or elsewhere that your savants considered them at once as distinct species, and set them down at first as indigenous66 creations. It amused me immensely.
For out of these forty plants thirty-four were to my certain knowledge of European origin. I had seen their seeds brought over by the wind or waves, and I had watched them gradually altering under stress of the new conditions into fresh varieties, which in process of time became distinct species. Two of the oldest were flowers of the dandelion and daisy group, provided with feathery seeds which enable them to fly far before the carrying breeze; and these two underwent such profound modifications68 in their insular69 home that the systematic70 botanists71 who at last examined them insisted upon putting each into a new genus, all by itself, invented for the special purpose of their reception. One almost equally ancient inhabitant, a sort of harebell, also became in process of time extremely unlike any other harebell I had ever seen in any part of my airy wanderings. But the remaining thirty new species or so evolved in the islands by the special circumstances of the group had varied72 so comparatively little from their primitive European ancestors, that they hardly deserved to be called anything more than very distinct and divergent varieties.
Some five or six plants, however, I noted73 arrive in my archipelago, not from Europe, but from the Canaries or Madeira, whose distant blue peaks lay dim on the horizon far to the south-west of us, as I poised74 in mid-air high above the topmost pinnacle75 of my wild craggy Pico. These kinds, belonging to a much warmer region, soon, as I noticed, underwent considerable modification67 in our cooler climate, and were all of them adjudged distinct species by the learned gentlemen who finally reported upon my island realm to British science.
As far as I can recollect, then, the total number of flowering plants I noted in the islands before the arrival of man was about 200; and of these, as I said before, only forty had so far altered in type as to be considered at present peculiar76 to the archipelago. The remainder were either comparatively recent arrivals or else had found the conditions of their new home so like those of the old one from which they migrated, that comparatively little change took place in their forms or habits. Of course, just in proportion as the islands got stocked I noticed that the changes were less and less marked; for each new plant, insect, or bird that established itself successfully tended to make the balance of nature more similar to the one that obtained in the mainland opposite, and so decreased the chances of novelty of variation.
Hence, it struck me that the oldest arrivals were the ones which altered most in adaptation to the circumstances, while the newest, finding themselves in comparatively familiar surroundings, had less occasion to be selected for strange and curious freaks or sports of form or colour.
The peopling of the islands with birds and animals, however, was to me even a more interesting and engrossing78 study in natural evolution than its peopling by plants, shrubs79, and trees. I may as well begin, therefore, by telling you at once that no furry81 or hairy quadruped of any sort—no mammal, as I understand your men of science call them—was ever stranded82 alive upon the shores of my islands. For twenty or thirty centuries indeed, I waited patiently, examining every piece of driftwood cast up upon our beaches, in the faint hope that perhaps some tiny mouse or shrew or water-vole might lurk83 half drowned in some cranny or crevice84 of the bark or trunk. But it was all in vain. I ought to have known beforehand that terrestrial animals of the higher types never by any chance reach an oceanic island in any part of this planet. The only three specimens85 of mammals I ever saw tossed up on the beach were two drowned mice and an unhappy squirrel, all as dead as doornails, and horribly mauled by the sea and the breakers. Nor did we ever get a snake, a lizard86, a frog, or a fresh-water fish, whose eggs I at first fondly supposed might occasionally be transported to us on bits of floating trees or matted turf, torn by floods from those prehistoric87 Lusitanian or African forests. No such luck was ours. Not a single terrestrial vertebrate of any sort appeared upon our shores before the advent88 of man with his domestic animals, who played havoc89 at once with my interesting experiment.
It was quite otherwise with the unobtrusive small deer of life—the snails91, and beetles94, and flies, and earthworms—and especially with the winged things: birds, bats, and butterflies. In the very earliest days of my islands' existence, indeed, a few stray feathered fowls95 of the air were driven ashore97 here by violent storms, at a time when vegetation had not yet begun to clothe the naked pumice and volcanic rock; but these, of course, perished for want of food, as did also a few later arrivals, who came under stress of weather at the period when only ferns, lichens, and mosses had as yet obtained a foothold on the young archipelago. Sea-birds, of course, soon found out our rocks; but as they live off fish only, they contributed little more than rich beds of guano to the permanent colonising of the islands. As well as I can remember, the land-snails were the earliest truly terrestrial casuals that managed to pick up a stray livelihood98 in these first colonial days of the archipelago. They came oftenest in the egg, sometimes clinging to water-logged leaves cast up by storms, sometimes hidden in the bark of floating driftwood, and sometimes swimming free on the open ocean. In one case, as I recall to myself well, a swallow, driven off from the Portuguese coast, a little before the Glacial period had begun to whiten the distant mountains of central and northern Europe, fell exhausted99 at last upon the shore of Terceira. There were no insects then for the poor bird to feed upon, so it died of starvation and weariness before the day was out; but a little earth that clung in a pellet to one of its feet contained the egg of a land-shell, while the prickly seed of a common Spanish plant was entangled100 among the winged feathers by its hooked awns. The egg hatched out, and became the parent of a large brood of minute snails, which, outliving the cold spell of the Ice Age, had developed into a very distinct type in the long period that intervened before the advent of man in the islands; while the seed sprang up on the natural manure102 heap afforded by the swallow's decaying body, and clinging to the valleys during the Glacial Age on the hill-tops, gave birth in due season to one of the most markedly indigenous of our Terceira plants.
Occasionally, too, very minute land-snails would arrive alive on the island after their long sea-voyage on bits of broken forest-trees—a circumstance which I would perhaps hesitate to mention in mere103 human society were it not that I have been credibly104 informed your own great naturalist105, Darwin, tried the experiment himself with one of the biggest European land-molluscs, the great edible106 Roman snail92, and found that it still lived on in vigorous style after immersion in sea-water for twenty days. Now, I myself observed that several of these bits of broken trees, torn down by floods in heavy storm time from the banks of Spanish or Portuguese rivers, reached my island in eight or ten days after leaving the mainland, and sometimes contained eggs of small land-snails. But as very long periods often passed without a single new species being introduced into the group, any kind that once managed to establish itself on any of the islands usually remained for ages undisturbed by new arrivals, and so had plenty of opportunity to adapt itself perfectly107 by natural selection to the new conditions. The consequence was, that out of some seventy land-snails now known in the islands, thirty-two had assumed distinct specific features before the advent of man, while thirty-seven (many of which, I think, I never noticed till the introduction of cultivated plants) are common to my group with Europe or with the other Atlantic islands. Most of these, I believe, came in with man and his disconcerting agriculture.
As to the pond and river snails, so far as I could observe, they mostly reached us later, being conveyed in the egg on the feet of stray waders or water-birds, which gradually peopled the island after the Glacial epoch.
Birds and all other flying creatures are now very abundant in all the islands; but I could tell you some curious and interesting facts, too, as to the mode of their arrival and the vicissitudes108 of their settlement. For example, during the age of the Forest Beds in Europe, a stray bullfinch was driven out to sea by a violent storm, and perched at last on a bush at Fayal. I wondered at first whether he would effect a settlement. But at that time no seeds or fruits fit for bullfinches to eat existed on the islands. Still, as it turned out, this particular bullfinch happened to have in his crop several undigested seeds of European plants exactly suited to the bullfinch taste; so when he died on the spot, these seeds, germinating109 abundantly, gave rise to a whole valleyful of appropriate plants for bullfinches to feed upon. Now, however, there was no bullfinch to eat them. For a long time, indeed, no other bullfinches arrived at my archipelago. Once, to be sure, a few hundred years later, a single cock bird did reach the island alone, much exhausted with his journey, and managed to pick up a living for himself off the seeds introduced by his unhappy predecessor110. But as he had no mate, he died at last, as your lawyers would say, without issue.
It was a couple of hundred years or so more before I saw a third bullfinch—which didn't surprise me, for bullfinches are very woodland birds, and non-migratory into the bargain—so that they didn't often get blown seaward over the broad Atlantic. At the end of that time, however, I observed one morning a pair of finches, after a heavy storm, drying their poor battered111 wings upon a shrub80 in one of the islands. From this solitary pair a new race sprang up, which developed after a time, as I imagined they must, into a distinct species. These local bullfinches now form the only birds peculiar to the islands; and the reason is one well divined by one of your own great naturalists112 (to whom I mean before I end to make the amende honorable). In almost all other cases the birds kept getting reinforced from time to time by others of their kind blown out to sea accidentally—for only such species were likely to arrive there—and this kept up the purity of the original race, by ensuring a cross every now and again with the European community. But the bullfinches, being the merest casuals, never again to my knowledge were reinforced from the mainland, and so they have produced at last a special island type, exactly adapted to the peculiarities113 of their new habitat.
You see, there was hardly ever a big storm on land that didn't bring at least one or two new birds of some sort or other to the islands. Naturally, too, the newcomers landed always on the first shore they could sight; and so at the present day the greatest number of species is found on the two easternmost islands nearest the mainland, which have forty kinds of land-birds, while the central islands have but thirty-six, and the western only twenty-nine. It would have been quite different, of course, if the birds came mainly from America with the trade winds and the Gulf Stream, as I at first anticipated. In that case, there would have been most kinds in the westernmost islands, and fewest stragglers in the far eastern. But your own naturalists have rightly seen that the existing distribution necessarily implies the opposite explanation.
Birds, I early noticed, are always great carriers of fruit-seeds, because they eat the berries, but don't digest the hard little stones within. It was in that way, I fancy, that the Portugal laurel first came to my islands, because it has an edible fruit with a very hard seed; and the same reason must account for the presence of the myrtle, with its small blue berry; the laurustinus with its currant-like fruit; the elder-tree, the canary laurel, the local sweet-gale, and the peculiar juniper. Before these shrubs were introduced thus unconsciously by our feathered guests, there were no fruits on which berry-eating birds could live; but now they are the only native trees or large bushes on the islands—I mean the only ones not directly planted by you mischief-making men, who have entirely114 spoilt my nice little experiment.
It was much the same with the history of some among the birds themselves. Not a few birds of prey115, for example, were driven to my little archipelago by stress of weather in its very early days; but they all perished for want of sufficient small quarry116 to make a living out of. As soon, however, as the islands had got well stocked with robins117, black-caps, wrens118, and wagtails, of European types—as soon as the chaffinches had established themselves on the seaward plains, and the canary had learnt to nest without fear among the Portugal laurels—then buzzards, long-eared owls96, and common barn-owls, driven westward119 by tempests, began to pick up a decent living on all the islands, and have ever since been permanent residents, to the immense terror and discomfort120 of our smaller song-birds. Thus the older the archipelago got the less chance was there of local variation taking place to any large degree, because the balance of life each day grew more closely to resemble that which each species had left behind it in its native European or African mainland.
I said a little while ago we had no mammal in the islands. In that I was not quite strictly121 correct. I ought to have said, no terrestrial mammal. A little Spanish bat got blown to us once by a rough nor'easter, and took up its abode122 at once among the caves of our archipelago, where it hawks123 to this day after our flies and beetles. This seemed to me to show very conspicuously124 the advantage which winged animals have in the matter of cosmopolitan125 dispersion; for while it was quite impossible for rats, mice, or squirrels to cross the intervening belt of three hundred leagues of sea, their little winged relation, the flitter-mouse, made the journey across quite safely on his own leathery vans, and with no greater difficulty than a swallow or a wood-pigeon.
The insects of my archipelago tell very much the same story as the birds and the plants. Here, too, winged species have stood at a great advantage. To be sure, the earliest butterflies and bees that arrived in the fern-clad period were starved for want of honey; but as soon as the valleys began to be thickly tangled101 with composites, harebells, and sweet-scented myrtle bushes, these nectar-eating insects established themselves successfully, and kept their breed true by occasional crosses with fresh arrivals blown to sea afterwards. The development of the beetles I watched with far greater interest, as they assumed fresh forms much more rapidly under their new conditions of restricted food and limited enemies. Many kinds I observed which came originally from Europe, sometimes in the larval state, sometimes in the egg, and sometimes flying as full-grown insects before the blast of the angry tempest. Several of these changed their features rapidly after their arrival in the islands, producing at first divergent varieties, and finally, by dint of selection, acting126 in various ways, through climate, food, or enemies, on these nascent127 forms, evolving into stable and well-adapted species. But I noticed three cases where bits of driftwood thrown up from South America on the western coasts contained the eggs or larvae128 of American beetles, while several others were driven ashore from the Canaries or Madeira; and in one instance even a small insect, belonging to a type now confined to Madagascar, found its way safely by sea to this remote spot, where, being a female with eggs, it succeeded in establishing a flourishing colony. I believe, however, that at the time of its arrival it still existed on the African continent, but becoming extinct there under stress of competition with higher forms, it now survives only in these two widely separated insular areas.
It was an endless amusement to me during those long centuries, while I devoted129 myself entirely to the task of watching my fauna and flora develop itself, to look out from day to day for any chance arrival by wind or waves, and to follow the course of its subsequent vicissitudes and evolution. In a great many cases, especially at first, the new-comer found no niche130 ready for it in the established order of things on the islands, and was fain at last, after a hard struggle, to retire for ever from the unequal contest. But often enough, too, he made a gallant131 fight for it, and, adapting himself rapidly to his new environment, changed his form and habits with surprising facility. For natural selection, I found, is a hard schoolmaster. If you happen to fit your place in the world, you live and thrive, but if you don't happen to fit it, to the wall with you without quarter. Thus sometimes I would see a small canary beetle93 quickly take to new food and new modes of life on my islands under my very eyes, so that in a century or so I judged him myself worthy132 of the distinction of a separate species; while in another case, I remember, a south European weevil evolved before long into something so wholly different from his former self that a systematic entomologist would have been forced to enrol133 him in a distinct genus. I often wish now that I had kept a regular collection of all the intermediate forms, to present as an illustrative series to one of your human museums; but in those days, of course, we none of us imagined anybody but ourselves would ever take an interest in these problems of the development of life, and we let the chance slide till it was too late to recover it.
Naturally, during all these ages changes of other sorts were going on in my islands—elevations and subsidences, separations and reunions, which helped to modify the life of the group considerably134. Indeed, volcanic action was constantly at work altering the shapes and sizes of the different rocky mountain-tops, and bringing now one, now another, into closer relations than before with its neighbours. Why, as recently as 1811 (a date which is so fresh in my memory that I could hardly forget it) a new island was suddenly formed by submarine eruption135 off the coast of St. Michael's, to which the name of Sabrina was momentarily given by your human geographers136. It was about a mile around and 300 feet high; but, consisting as it did of loose cinders137 only, it was soon washed away by the force of the waves in that stormy region. I merely mention it here to show how recently volcanic changes have taken place in my islands, and how continuously the internal energy has been at work modifying and re-arranging them.
Up to the moment of the arrival of man in the archipelago the whole population, animal and vegetable, consisted entirely of these waifs and strays, blown out to sea from Europe or Africa, and modified more or less on the spot in accordance with the varying needs of their new home. But the advent of the obtrusive90 human species spoilt the game at once for an independent observer. Man immediately introduced oranges, bananas, sweet potatoes, grapes, plums, almonds, and many other trees or shrubs, in which, for selfish reasons, he was personally interested. At the same time he quite unconsciously and unintentionally stocked the islands with a fine vigorous crop of European weeds, so that the number of kinds of flowering plants included in the modern flora of my little archipelago exceeds, I think, by fully77 one-half that which I remember before the date of the Portuguese occupation. In the same way, besides his domestic animals, this spoil-sport colonist40 man brought in his train accidentally rabbits, weasels, mice, and rats, which now abound138 in many parts of the group, so that the islands have now in effect a wild mammalian fauna. What is more odd, a small lizard has also got about in the walls—not as you would imagine, a native-born Portuguese subject, but of a kind found only in Madeira and Teneriffe, and, as far as I could make out at the time, it seemed to me to come over with cuttings of Madeira vines for planting at St. Michael's. It was about the same time, I imagine, that eels139 and gold-fish first got loose from glass globes into the ponds and water-courses.
I have forgotten to mention, what you will no doubt yourself long since have inferred, that my archipelago is known among human beings in modern times as the Azores; and also that traces of all these curious facts of introduction and modification, which I have detailed140 here in their historical order, may still be detected by an acute observer and reasoner in the existing condition of the fauna and flora. Indeed, one of your own countrymen, Mr. Goodman, has collected all the most salient of these facts in his 'Natural History of the Azores,' and another of your distinguished141 men of science, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, has given essentially the same explanations beforehand as those which I have here ventured to lay, from another point of view, before a critical human audience. But while Mr. Wallace has arrived at them by a process of arguing backward from existing facts to prior causes and probable antecedents, it occurred to me, who had enjoyed such exceptional opportunities of watching the whole process unfold itself from the very beginning, that a strictly historical account of how I had seen it come about, step after step, might possess for some of you a greater direct interest than Mr. Wallace's inferential solution of the self-same problem. If, through lapse of memory or inattention to detail at so remote a period, I have set down aught amiss, I sincerely trust you will be kind enough to forgive me. But this little epic142 of the peopling of a single oceanic archipelago by casual strays, which I alone have had the good fortune to follow through all its episodes, seemed to me too unique and valuable a chapter in the annals of life to be withheld143 entirely from the scientific world of your eager, ephemeral, nineteenth century humanity.
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marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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investigator
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| n.研究者，调查者，审查者 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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betokens
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| v.预示，表示( betoken的第三人称单数 ) | |
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poising
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| 使平衡( poise的现在分词 )； 保持（某种姿势）； 抓紧； 使稳定 | |
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pinions
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| v.抓住[捆住]（双臂）( pinion的第三人称单数 ) | |
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volcanic
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| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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upheaval
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| n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱 | |
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lateral
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| adj.侧面的，旁边的 | |
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fathoms
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| 英寻( fathom的名词复数 ) | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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terminology
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| n.术语；专有名词 | |
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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memorandum
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| n.备忘录，便笺 | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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23
craters
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| n.火山口( crater的名词复数 )；弹坑等 | |
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24
plummet
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| vi.(价格、水平等)骤然下跌；n.铅坠；重压物 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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silhouetted
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| 显出轮廓的，显示影像的 | |
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28
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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29
slag
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| n.熔渣，铁屑，矿渣；v.使变成熔渣，变熔渣 | |
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30
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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31
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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32
dint
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| n.由于，靠；凹坑 | |
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33
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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34
spores
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| n.（细菌、苔藓、蕨类植物）孢子( spore的名词复数 )v.（细菌、苔藓、蕨类植物）孢子( spore的第三人称单数 ) | |
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35
lichens
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| n.地衣( lichen的名词复数 ) | |
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36
sprout
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| n.芽，萌芽；vt.使发芽，摘去芽；vi.长芽，抽条 | |
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37
torrents
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| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
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38
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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39
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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40
colonist
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| n.殖民者，移民 | |
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41
colonists
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| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
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42
eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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43
fauna
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| n.(一个地区或时代的)所有动物，动物区系 | |
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44
flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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45
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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46
sprouting
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| v.发芽( sprout的现在分词 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出 | |
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47
ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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48
immersion
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| n.沉浸；专心 | |
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49
acorn
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| n.橡实，橡子 | |
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50
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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51
chestnuts
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| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
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52
beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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53
alders
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| n.桤木( alder的名词复数 ) | |
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54
larches
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| n.落叶松（木材）( larch的名词复数 ) | |
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55
diversify
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| v.（使）不同，（使）变得多样化 | |
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56
fungi
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| n.真菌，霉菌 | |
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57
mosses
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| n. 藓类, 苔藓植物 名词moss的复数形式 | |
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58
hawthorn
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| 山楂 | |
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59
chaffy
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| adj.多糠的，如糠的，无用的 | |
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60
wafted
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| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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61
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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62
haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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63
lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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64
pollen
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| n.[植]花粉 | |
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65
diverged
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| 分开( diverge的过去式和过去分词 )； 偏离； 分歧； 分道扬镳 | |
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66
indigenous
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| adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的 | |
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67
modification
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| n.修改，改进，缓和，减轻 | |
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68
modifications
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| n.缓和( modification的名词复数 )；限制；更改；改变 | |
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69
insular
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| adj.岛屿的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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70
systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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71
botanists
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| n.植物学家，研究植物的人( botanist的名词复数 ) | |
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72
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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73
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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74
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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75
pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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76
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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77
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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78
engrossing
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| adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 ) | |
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79
shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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80
shrub
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| n.灌木，灌木丛 | |
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81
furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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82
stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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83
lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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84
crevice
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| n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝；缺口 | |
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85
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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86
lizard
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| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
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87
prehistoric
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| adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的 | |
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88
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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89
havoc
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| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
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90
obtrusive
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| adj.显眼的；冒失的 | |
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91
snails
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| n.蜗牛；迟钝的人；蜗牛( snail的名词复数 ) | |
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92
snail
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| n.蜗牛 | |
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93
beetle
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| n.甲虫，近视眼的人 | |
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94
beetles
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| n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 ) | |
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95
fowls
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| 鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马 | |
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96
owls
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| n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 ) | |
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97
ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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98
livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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99
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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100
entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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101
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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102
manure
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| n.粪，肥，肥粒；vt.施肥 | |
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103
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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104
credibly
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| ad.可信地；可靠地 | |
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105
naturalist
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| n.博物学家(尤指直接观察动植物者) | |
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106
edible
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| n.食品，食物；adj.可食用的 | |
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107
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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108
vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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109
germinating
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| n.& adj.发芽（的）v.（使）发芽( germinate的现在分词 ) | |
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110
predecessor
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| n.前辈，前任 | |
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111
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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112
naturalists
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| n.博物学家( naturalist的名词复数 )；（文学艺术的）自然主义者 | |
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113
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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114
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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115
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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116
quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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117
robins
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| n.知更鸟，鸫( robin的名词复数 )；（签名者不分先后，以避免受责的）圆形签名抗议书（或请愿书） | |
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118
wrens
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| n.鹪鹩( wren的名词复数 ) | |
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119
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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120
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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121
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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122
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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123
hawks
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| 鹰( hawk的名词复数 )； 鹰派人物，主战派人物 | |
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124
conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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125
cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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126
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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127
nascent
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| adj.初生的，发生中的 | |
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128
larvae
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| n.幼虫 | |
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129
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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130
niche
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| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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131
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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132
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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133
enrol
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| v.（使）注册入学，（使）入学，（使）入会 | |
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134
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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135
eruption
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| n.火山爆发；（战争等）爆发；（疾病等）发作 | |
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136
geographers
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| 地理学家( geographer的名词复数 ) | |
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137
cinders
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| n.煤渣( cinder的名词复数 )；炭渣；煤渣路；煤渣跑道 | |
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138
abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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139
eels
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| abbr. 电子发射器定位系统（=electronic emitter location system） | |
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140
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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141
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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142
epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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143
withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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