This ancient feud, I imagine, is really ancestral, and dates many ages further back in time than Grip's individual experiences. Cows hate dogs instinctively10, from their earliest calfhood upward. I used to doubt once upon a time whether the hatred12 was not of artificial origin and wholly induced by the inveterate13 human habit of egging on every dog to worry every other animal that comes in its way. But I tried a mild experiment one day by putting a half-grown town-bred puppy into a small enclosure with some hitherto unworried calves14, and they all turned to make a common headway against the intruder with the same striking unanimity15 as the most ancient and experienced cows. Hence I am inclined to suspect that the antipathy16 does actually result from a vaguely17 inherited instinct derived18 from the days when the ancestor of our kine was a wild bull, and the ancestor of our dogs a wolf, on the wide forest-clad plains of Central Europe. When a cow puts up its tail at sight of a dog entering its paddock at the present day, it has probably some dim instinctive9 consciousness that it stands in the presence of a dangerous hereditary19 foe20; and as the wolves could only seize with safety a single isolated21 wild bull, so the cows now usually make common cause against the intruding22 dog, turning their heads in one direction with very unwonted unanimity, till his tail finally disappears under the opposite gate. Such inherited antipathies23 seem common and natural enough. Every species knows and dreads24 the ordinary enemies of its race. Mice scamper25 away from the very smell of a cat. Young chickens run to the shelter of their mother's wings when the shadow of a hawk26 passes over their heads. Mr. Darwin put a small snake into a paper bag, which he gave to the monkeys at the Zoo; and one monkey after another opened the bag, looked in upon the deadly foe of the quadrumanous kind, and promptly27 dropped the whole package with every gesture of horror and dismay. Even man himself—though his instincts have all weakened so greatly with the growth of his more plastic intelligence, adapted to a wider and more modifiable set of external circumstances—seems to retain a vague and original terror of the serpentine28 form.
If we think of parallel cases, it is not curious that animals should thus instinctively recognise their natural enemies. We are not surprised that they recognise their own fellows: and yet they must do so by means of some equally strange automatic and inherited mechanism29 in their nervous system. One butterfly can tell its mates at once from a thousand other species, though it may differ from some of them only by a single spot or line, which would escape the notice of all but the most attentive30 observers. Must we not conclude that there are elements in the butterfly's feeble brain exactly answering to the blank picture of its specific type? So, too, must we not suppose that in every race of animals there arises a perceptive31 structure specially32 adapted to the recognition of its own kind? Babies notice human faces long before they notice any other living thing. In like manner we know that most creatures can judge instinctively of their proper food. One young bird just fledged naturally pecks at red berries; another exhibits an untaught desire to chase down grasshoppers33; a third, which happens to be born an owl34, turns at once to the congenial pursuit of small sparrows, mice, and frogs. Each species seems to have certain faculties35 so arranged that the sight of certain external objects, frequently connected with food in their ancestral experience, immediately arouses in them the appropriate actions for its capture. Mr. Douglas Spalding found that newly-hatched chickens darted36 rapidly and accurately37 at flies on the wing. When we recollect38 that even so late an acquisition as articulate speech in human beings has its special physical seat in the brain, it is not astonishing that complicated mechanisms39 should have arisen among animals for the due perception of mates, food, and foes40 respectively. Thus, doubtless, the serpent form has imprinted41 itself indelibly on the senses of monkeys, and the wolf or dog form on those of cows: so that even with a young ape or calf11 the sight of these their ancestral enemies at once calls up uneasy or terrified feelings in their half-developed minds. Our own infants in arms have no personal experience of the real meaning to be attached to angry tones, yet they shrink from the sound of a gruff voice even before they have learned to distinguish their nurse's face.
When Grip gets among the sheep, their hereditary traits come out in a very different manner. They are by nature and descent timid mountain animals, and they have never been accustomed to face a foe, as cows and buffaloes42 are wont to do, especially when in a herd43 together. You cannot see many traces of the original mountain life among sheep, and yet there are still a few remaining to mark their real pedigree. Mr. Herbert Spencer has noticed the fondness of lambs for frisking on a hillock, however small; and when I come to my little knoll here, I generally find it occupied by a couple, who rush away on my approach, but take their stand instead on the merest ant-hill which they can find in the field. I once knew three young goats, kids of a mountain breed, and the only elevated object in the paddock where they were kept was a single old elm stump44. For the possession of this stump the goats fought incessantly45; and the victor would proudly perch46 himself on the top, with all four legs inclined inward (for the whole diameter of the tree was but some fifteen inches), maintaining himself in his place with the greatest difficulty, and butting47 at his two brothers until at last he lost his balance and fell. This one old stump was the sole representative in their limited experience of the rocky pinnacle48 upon which their forefathers49 kept watch like sentinels; and their instinctive yearnings prompted them to perch themselves upon the only available memento50 of their native haunts. Thus, too, but in a dimmer and vaguer way, the sheep, especially during his younger days, loves to revert51, so far as his small opportunities permit him, to the unconsciously remembered habits of his race. But in mountain countries, every one must have noticed how the sheep at once becomes a different being. On the Welsh hills he casts away all the dull and heavy serenity52 of his brethren on the South Downs, and displays once more the freedom, and even the comparative boldness, of a mountain breed. A Merionethshire ewe thinks nothing of running up one side of a low-roofed barn and down the other, or of clearing a stone wall which a Leicestershire farmer would consider extravagantly53 high.
Another mountain trait in the stereotyped54 character of sheep is their well-known sequaciousness. When Grip runs after them they all run away together: if one goes through a certain gap in the hedge, every other follows; and if the leader jumps the beck at a certain spot, every lamb in the flock jumps in the self-same place. It is said that if you hold a stick for the first sheep to leap over, and then withdraw it, all the succeeding sheep will leap with mathematical accuracy at the corresponding point; and this habit is usually held up to ridicule55 as proving the utter stupidity of the whole race. It really proves nothing but the goodness of their ancestral instincts. For mountain animals, accustomed to follow a leader, that leader being the bravest and strongest ram56 of the flock, must necessarily follow him with the most implicit57 obedience58. He alone can see what obstacles come in the way; and each of the succeeding train must watch and imitate the actions of their predecessors59. Otherwise, if the flock happens to come to a chasm60, running as they often must with some speed, any individual which stopped to look and decide for itself before leaping would inevitably61 be pushed over the edge by those behind it, and so would lose all chance of handing down its cautious and sceptical spirit to any possible descendants. On the other hand, those uninquiring and blindly obedient animals which simply did as they saw others do would both survive themselves and become the parents of future and similar generations. Thus there would be handed down from dam to lamb a general tendency to sequaciousness—a follow-my-leader spirit, which was really the best safeguard for the race against the evils of insubordination, still so fatal to Alpine62 climbers. And now that our sheep have settled down to a tame and monotonous63 existence on the downs of Sussex or the levels of the Midlands, the old instinct clings to them still, and speaks out plainly for their mountain origin. There are few things in nature more interesting to notice than these constant survivals of instinctive habits in altered circumstances. They are to the mental life what rudimentary organs are to the bodily structure: they remind us of an older order of things, just as the abortive64 legs of the blind-worm show us that he was once a lizard65, and the hidden shell of the slug that he was once a snail66.
点击收听单词发音
1 wont | |
adj.习惯于;v.习惯;n.习惯 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 knoll | |
n.小山,小丘 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 scours | |
走遍(某地)搜寻(人或物)( scour的第三人称单数 ); (用力)刷; 擦净; 擦亮 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 canine | |
adj.犬的,犬科的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 inflicts | |
把…强加给,使承受,遭受( inflict的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 feud | |
n.长期不和;世仇;v.长期争斗;世代结仇 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 warfare | |
n.战争(状态);斗争;冲突 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 benevolent | |
adj.仁慈的,乐善好施的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 instinctive | |
adj.(出于)本能的;直觉的;(出于)天性的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 instinctively | |
adv.本能地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 calf | |
n.小牛,犊,幼仔,小牛皮 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 hatred | |
n.憎恶,憎恨,仇恨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 inveterate | |
adj.积习已深的,根深蒂固的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 calves | |
n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子,腓;腿肚子( calf的名词复数 );牛犊;腓;小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 );(冰川)崩解;生(小牛等),产(犊);使(冰川)崩解 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 unanimity | |
n.全体一致,一致同意 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 antipathy | |
n.憎恶;反感,引起反感的人或事物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 vaguely | |
adv.含糊地,暖昧地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 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 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 hereditary | |
adj.遗传的,遗传性的,可继承的,世袭的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 foe | |
n.敌人,仇敌 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 isolated | |
adj.与世隔绝的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 intruding | |
v.侵入,侵扰,打扰( intrude的现在分词);把…强加于 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 antipathies | |
反感( antipathy的名词复数 ); 引起反感的事物; 憎恶的对象; (在本性、倾向等方面的)不相容 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 dreads | |
n.恐惧,畏惧( dread的名词复数 );令人恐惧的事物v.害怕,恐惧,担心( dread的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 scamper | |
v.奔跑,快跑 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 hawk | |
n.鹰,骗子;鹰派成员 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 promptly | |
adv.及时地,敏捷地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 serpentine | |
adj.蜿蜒的,弯曲的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 mechanism | |
n.机械装置;机构,结构 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 attentive | |
adj.注意的,专心的;关心(别人)的,殷勤的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31 perceptive | |
adj.知觉的,有洞察力的,感知的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
32 specially | |
adv.特定地;特殊地;明确地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
33 grasshoppers | |
n.蚱蜢( grasshopper的名词复数 );蝗虫;蚂蚱;(孩子)矮小的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
34 owl | |
n.猫头鹰,枭 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
35 faculties | |
n.能力( faculty的名词复数 );全体教职员;技巧;院 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
36 darted | |
v.投掷,投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 );向前冲,飞奔 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
37 accurately | |
adv.准确地,精确地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
38 recollect | |
v.回忆,想起,记起,忆起,记得 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
39 mechanisms | |
n.机械( mechanism的名词复数 );机械装置;[生物学] 机制;机械作用 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
40 foes | |
敌人,仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
41 imprinted | |
v.盖印(imprint的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
42 buffaloes | |
n.水牛(分非洲水牛和亚洲水牛两种)( buffalo的名词复数 );(南非或北美的)野牛;威胁;恐吓 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
43 herd | |
n.兽群,牧群;vt.使集中,把…赶在一起 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
44 stump | |
n.残株,烟蒂,讲演台;v.砍断,蹒跚而走 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
45 incessantly | |
ad.不停地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
46 perch | |
n.栖木,高位,杆;v.栖息,就位,位于 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
47 butting | |
用头撞人(犯规动作) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
48 pinnacle | |
n.尖塔,尖顶,山峰;(喻)顶峰 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
49 forefathers | |
n.祖先,先人;祖先,祖宗( forefather的名词复数 );列祖列宗;前人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
50 memento | |
n.纪念品,令人回忆的东西 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
51 revert | |
v.恢复,复归,回到 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
52 serenity | |
n.宁静,沉着,晴朗 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
53 extravagantly | |
adv.挥霍无度地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
54 stereotyped | |
adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
55 ridicule | |
v.讥讽,挖苦;n.嘲弄 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
56 ram | |
(random access memory)随机存取存储器 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
57 implicit | |
a.暗示的,含蓄的,不明晰的,绝对的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
58 obedience | |
n.服从,顺从 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
59 predecessors | |
n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 );前辈;(被取代的)原有事物;前身 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
60 chasm | |
n.深坑,断层,裂口,大分岐,利害冲突 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
61 inevitably | |
adv.不可避免地;必然发生地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
62 alpine | |
adj.高山的;n.高山植物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
63 monotonous | |
adj.单调的,一成不变的,使人厌倦的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
64 abortive | |
adj.不成功的,发育不全的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
65 lizard | |
n.蜥蜴,壁虎 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
66 snail | |
n.蜗牛 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |