It is just the same with all the other animals and plants that now inhabit these isles of Britain. If there be anything at all with a claim to be considered really indigenous, it is the Scotch15 ptarmigan and the Alpine16 hare, the northern holygrass and the mountain flowers of the Highland summits. All the rest are sojourners and wayfarers17, brought across as casuals, like the gipsies and the Oriental plane, at various times to the United Kingdom, some of them recently, some of them long ago, but not one of them (it seems), except the oyster18, a true native. The common brown rat, for instance, as everybody knows, came over, not, it is true, with William the Conqueror, but with the Hanoverian dynasty and King George I. of blessed memory. The familiar cockroach19, or 'black beetle20,' of our lower regions, is an Oriental importation of the last century. The hum of the mosquito is now just beginning to be heard in the land, especially in some big London hotels. The Colorado beetle is hourly expected by Cunard steamer. The Canadian roadside erigeron is well established already in the remoter suburbs; the phylloxera battens on our hothouse vines; the American river-weed stops the navigation on our principal canals. The Ganges and the Mississippi have long since flooded the tawny21 Thames, as Juvenal's cynical22 friend declared the Syrian Orontes had flooded the Tiber. And what has thus been going on slowly within the memory of the last few generations has been going on constantly from time immemorial, and peopling Britain in all its parts with its now existing fauna23 and flora24.
But if all the plants and animals in our islands are thus ultimately imported, the question naturally arises, What was there in Great Britain and Ireland before any of their present inhabitants came to inherit them? The answer is, succinctly25, Nothing. Or if this be a little too extreme, then let us imitate the modesty26 of Mr. Gilbert's hero and modify the statement into Hardly anything. In England, as in Northern Europe generally, modern history begins, not with the reign5 of Queen Elizabeth, but with the passing away of the Glacial Epoch27. During that great age of universal ice our Britain, from end to end, was covered at various times by sea and by glaciers29; it resembled on the whole the cheerful aspect of Spitzbergen or Nova Zembla at the present day. A few reindeer30 wandered now and then over its frozen shores; a scanty31 vegetation of the correlative reindeer-moss grew with difficulty under the sheets and drifts of endless snow; a stray walrus32 or an occasional seal basked33 in the chilly34 sunshine on the ice-bound coast. But during the greatest extension of the North-European ice-sheet it is probable that life in London was completely extinct; the metropolitan35 area did not even vegetate36. Snow and snow and snow and snow was then the short sum-total of British scenery. Murray's Guides were rendered quite unnecessary, and penny ices were a drug in the market. England was given up to one unchanging universal winter.
Slowly, however, times altered, as they are much given to doing; and a new era dawned upon Britain. The thermometer rose rapidly, or at least it would have risen, with effusion, if it had yet been invented. The land emerged from the sea, and southern plants and animals began to invade the area that was afterwards to be England, across the broad belt which then connected us with the Continental37 system. But in those days communications were slow and land transit38 difficult. You had to foot it. The European fauna and flora moved but gradually and tentatively north-westward39, and before any large part of it could settle in England our island was finally cut off from the mainland by the long and gradual wearing away of the cliffs at Dover and Calais. That accounts for the comparative poverty of animal and vegetable life in England, and still more for its extreme paucity40 and meagreness in Ireland and the Highlands. It has been erroneously asserted, for example, that St. Patrick expelled snakes and lizards41, frogs and toads43, from the soil of Erin. This detail, as the French newspapers politely phrase it, is inexact. St. Patrick did not expel the reptiles44, because there were never any reptiles in Ireland (except dynamiters) for him to expel. The creatures never got so far on their long and toilsome north-westward march before St. George's Channel intervened to prevent their passage across to Dublin. It is really, therefore, to St. George, rather than to St. Patrick, that the absence of toads and snakes from the soil of Ireland is ultimately due. The doubtful Cappadocian prelate is well known to have been always death on dragons and serpents.
As long ago as the sixteenth century, indeed, Verstegan the antiquary clearly saw that the existence of badgers45 and foxes in England implied the former presence of a belt of land joining the British Islands to the Continent of Europe; for, as he acutely observed, nobody (before fox-hunting, at least) would ever have taken the trouble to bring them over. Still more does the presence in our islands of the red deer, and formerly47 of the wild white cattle, the wolf, the bear, and the wild boar, to say nothing of the beaver48, the otter49, the squirrel, and the weasel, prove that England was once conterminous with France or Belgium. At the very best of times, however, before Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel had killed positively50 the last 'last wolf' in Britain (several other 'last wolves' having previously51 been despatched by various earlier intrepid52 exterminators), our English fauna was far from a rich one, especially as regards the larger quadrupeds. In bats, birds, and insects we have always done better, because to such creatures a belt of sea is not by any means an insuperable barrier; whereas in reptiles and amphibians53, on the contrary, we have always been weak, seeing that most reptiles are bad swimmers, and very few can rival the late lamented54 Captain Webb in his feat55 of crossing the Channel, as Leander and Lord Byron did the Hellespont.
Only one good-sized animal, so far as known, is now peculiar56 to the British Isles, and that is our familiar friend the red grouse57 of the Scotch moors58. I doubt, however, whether even he is really indigenous in the strictest sense of the word: that is to say, whether he was evolved in and for these islands exclusively, as the moa and the apteryx were evolved for New Zealand, and the extinct dodo for Mauritius alone. It is far more probable that the red grouse is the original variety of the willow59 grouse of Scandinavia, which has retained throughout the year its old plumage, while its more northern cousins among the fiords and fjelds have taken, under stress of weather, to donning a complete white dress in winter, and a grey or speckled tourist suit for the summer season.
Even since the insulation60 of Britain a great many new plants and animals have been added to our population, both by human design and in several other casual fashions. The fallow deer is said to have been introduced by the Romans, and domesticated61 ever since in the successive parks of Celt and Saxon, Dane and Norman. The edible62 snail63, still scattered64 thinly over our southern downs, and abundant at Box Hill and a few other spots in Surrey or Sussex, was brought over, they tell us, by the same luxurious65 Italian epicures66, and is even now confined, imaginative naturalists67 declare, to the immediate68 neighbourhood of Roman stations. The medi?val monks69, in like manner, introduced the carp for their Friday dinners. One of our commonest river mussels at the present day did not exist in England at all a century ago, but was ferried hither from the Volga, clinging to the bottoms of vessels70 from the Black Sea, and has now spread itself through all our brooks71 and streams to the very heart and centre of England. Thus, from day to day, as in society at large, new introductions constantly take place, and old friends die out for ever. The brown rat replaces the old English black rat; strange weeds kill off the weeds of ancient days; fresh flies and grubs and beetles72 crop up, and disturb the primitive73 entomological balance. The bustard is gone from Salisbury Plain; the fenland butterflies have disappeared with the drainage of the fens75. In their place the red-legged partridge invades Norfolk; the American black bass76 is making himself quite at home, with Yankee assurance, in our sluggish77 rivers; and the spoonbill is nesting of its own accord among the warmer corners of the Sussex downs.
In the plant world, substitution often takes place far more rapidly. I doubt whether the stinging nettle78, which renders picnicking a nuisance in England, is truly indigenous; certainly the two worst kinds, the smaller nettle and the Roman nettle, are quite recent denizens79, never straying, even at the present day, far from the precincts of farmyards and villages. The shepherd's-purse and many other common garden weeds of cultivation80 are of Eastern origin, and came to us at first with the seed-corn and the peas from the Mediterranean81 region. Corn-cockles and corn-flowers are equally foreign and equally artificial; even the scarlet82 poppy, seldom found except in wheat-fields or around waste places in villages, has probably followed the course of tillage from some remote and ancient Eastern origin. There is a pretty blue veronica which was unknown in England some thirty years since, but which then began to spread in gardens, and is now one of the commonest and most troublesome weeds throughout the whole country. Other familiar wild plants have first been brought over as garden flowers. There is the wall-flower, for instance, now escaped from cultivation in every part of Britain, and mantling83 with its yellow bunches both old churches and houses and also the crannies of the limestone84 cliffs around half the shores of England. The common stock has similarly overrun the sea-front of the Isle of Wight; the monkey-plant, originally a Chilian flower, has run wild in many boggy85 spots in England and Wales; and a North American balsam, seldom cultivated even in cottage gardens, has managed to establish itself in profuse86 abundance along the banks of the Wey about Guildford and Godalming. One little garden linaria, at first employed as an ornament87 for hanging-baskets, has become so common on old walls and banks as to be now considered a mere88 weed, and exterminated89 accordingly by fashionable gardeners. Such are the unaccountable reverses of fortune, that one age will pay fifty guineas a bulb for a plant which the next age grubs up unanimously as a vulgar intruder. White of Selborne noticed with delight in his own kitchen that rare insect, the Oriental cockroach, lately imported; and Mr. Brewer90 observed with joy in his garden at Reigate the blue Buxbaum speedwell, which is now the acknowledged and hated pest of the Surrey agriculturist.
The history of some of these waifs and strays which go to make up the wider population of Britain is indeed sufficiently91 remarkable92. Like all islands, England has a fragmentary fauna and flora, whose members have often drifted towards it in the most wonderful and varied93 manner. Sometimes they bear witness to ancient land connections, as in the case of the spotted94 Portuguese95 slug which Professor Allman found calmly disporting96 itself on the basking97 cliffs in the Killarney district. In former days, when Spain and Ireland joined hands in the middle of the Bay of Biscay, the ancestors of this placid98 Lusitanian mollusk99 must have ranged (good word to apply to slugs) from the groves100 of Cintra to the Cove28 of Cork101. But, as time rolled on, the cruel crawling sea rolled on also, and cut away all the western world from the foot of the Asturias to Macgillicuddy's Reeks102. So the spotted slug continued to survive in two distinct and divided bodies, a large one in South-western Europe, and a small isolated103 colony, all alone by itself, around the Kerry mountains and the Lakes of Killarney. At other times pure accident accounts for the presence of a particular species in the mainlands of Britain. For example, the Bermuda grass-lily, a common American plant, is known in a wild state nowhere in Europe save at a place called Woodford, in county Galway. Nobody ever planted it there; it has simply sprung up from some single seed, carried over, perhaps, on the feet of a bird, or cast ashore104 by the Gulf105 Stream on the hospitable106 coast of Western Ireland. Yet there it has flourished and thriven ever since, a naturalised British subject of undoubted origin, without ever spreading to north or south above a few miles from its adopted habitat.
There are several of these unconscious American importations in various parts of Britain, some of them, no doubt, brought over with seed-corn or among the straw of packing-cases, but others unconnected in any way with human agency, and owing their presence here to natural causes. That pretty little Yankee weed, the claytonia, now common in parts of Lancashire and Oxfordshire, first made its appearance amongst us, I believe, by its seeds being accidentally included with the sawdust in which Wenham Lake ice is packed for transport. The Canadian river-weed is known first to have escaped from the botanical gardens at Cambridge, whence it spread rapidly through the congenial dykes108 and sluices109 of the fen74 country, and so into the entire navigable network of the Midland counties. But there are other aliens of older settlement amongst us, aliens of American origin which nevertheless arrived in Britain, in all probability, long before Columbus ever set foot on the low basking sandbank of Cat Island. Such is the jointed110 pond-sedge of the Hebrides, a water-weed found abundantly in the lakes and tarns111 of the Isle of Skye, Mull and Coll, and the west coast of Ireland, but occurring nowhere else throughout the whole expanse of Europe or Asia. How did it get there? Clearly its seeds were either washed by the waves or carried by birds, and thus deposited on the nearest European shores to America. But if Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace had been alive in pre-Columban days (which, as Euclid remarks, is absurd), he would readily have inferred, from the frequent occurrence of such unknown plants along the western verge112 of Britain, that a great continent lay unexplored to the westward, and would promptly113 have proceeded to discover and annex114 it. As Mr. Wallace was not yet born, however, Columbus took a mean advantage over him, and discovered it first by mere right of primogeniture.
In other cases, the circumstances under which a particular plant appears in England are often very suspicious. Take the instance of the belladonna, or deadly nightshade, an extremely rare British species, found only in the immediate neighbourhood of old castles and monastic buildings. Belladonna, of course, is a deadly poison, and was much used in the half-magical, half-criminal sorceries of the Middle Ages. Did you wish to remove a troublesome rival or an elder brother, you treated him to a dose of deadly nightshade. Yet why should it, in company with many other poisonous exotics, be found so frequently around the ruins of monasteries115? Did the holy fathers—but no, the thought is too irreverent. Let us keep our illusions, and forget the friar and the apothecary116 in 'Romeo and Juliet.'
Belladonna has never fairly taken root in English soil. It remains117, like the Roman snail and the Portuguese slug, a mere casual straggler about its ancient haunts. But there are other plants which have fairly established their claim to be considered as native-born Britons, though they came to us at first as aliens and colonists from foreign parts. Such, to take a single case, is the history of the common alexanders, now a familiar weed around villages and farmyards, but only introduced into England as a pot-herb about the eighth or ninth century. It was long grown in cottage gardens for table purposes, but has for ages been superseded118 in that way by celery. Nevertheless, it continues to grow all about our lanes and hedges, side by side with another quaintly-named plant, bishop-weed or gout-weed, whose very titles in themselves bear curious witness to its original uses in this isle of Britain. I don't know why, but it is an historical fact that the early prelates of the English Church, saintly or otherwise, were peculiarly liable to that very episcopal disease, the gout. Whether their frequent fasting produced this effect; whether, as they themselves piously119 alleged120, it was due to constant kneeling on the cold stones of churches; or whether, as their enemies rather insinuated121, it was due in greater measure to the excellent wines presented to them by their Italian confrères, is a minute question to be decided122 by Mr. Freeman, not by the present humble123 inquirer. But the fact remains that bishops124 and gout got indelibly associated in the public mind; that the episcopal toes were looked upon as especially subject to that insidious125 disease up to the very end of the last century; and that they do say the bishops even now—but I refrain from the commission of scandalum magnatum. Anyhow, this particular weed was held to be a specific for the bishop's evil; and, being introduced and cultivated for the purpose, it came to be known indifferently to herbalists as bishop-weed and gout-weed. It has now long since ceased to be a recognised member of the British Pharmacop?ia, but, having overrun our lanes and thickets126 in its flush period, it remains to this day a visible botanical and etymological127 memento128 of the past twinges of episcopal remorse7.
Taken as a whole, one may fairly say that the total population of the British Isles consists mainly of three great elements. The first and oldest—the only one with any real claim to be considered as truly native—is the cold Northern, Alpine and Arctic element, comprising such animals as the white hare of Scotland, the ptarmigan, the pine marten, and the capercailzie—the last once extinct, and now reintroduced into the Highlands as a game bird. This very ancient fauna and flora, left behind soon after the Glacial Epoch, and perhaps in part a relic129 of the type which still struggled on in favoured spots during that terrible period of universal ice and snow, now survives for the most part only in the extreme north and on the highest and chilliest130 mountain-tops, where it has gradually been driven, like tourists in August, by the increasing warmth and sultriness of the southern lowlands. The summits of the principal Scotch hills are occupied by many Arctic plants, now slowly dying out, but lingering yet as last relics131 of that old native British flora. The Alpine milk vetch thus loiters among the rocks of Braemar and Clova; the Arctic brook-saxifrage flowers but sparingly near the summit of Ben Lawers, Ben Nevis, and Lochnagar; its still more northern ally, the drooping132 saxifrage, is now extinct in all Britain, save on a single snowy Scotch height, where it now rarely blossoms, and will soon become altogether obsolete133. There are other northern plants of this first and oldest British type, like the Ural oxytrope, the cloudberry, and the white dryas, which remain as yet even in the moors of Yorkshire, or over considerable tracts134 in the Scotch Highlands; there are others restricted to a single spot among the Welsh hills, an isolated skerry among the outer Hebrides, or a solitary135 summit in the Lake District. But wherever they linger, these true-born Britons of the old rock are now but strangers and outcasts in the land; the intrusive136 foreigner has driven them to die on the cold mountain-tops, as the Celt drove the Mongolian to the hills, and the Saxon, in turn, has driven the Celt to the Highlands and the islands. Yet as late as the twelfth century itself, even the true reindeer, the Arctic monarch137 of the Glacial Epoch, was still hunted by Norwegian jarls of Orkney on the mainland of Caithness and Sutherlandshire.
Second in age is the warm western and south-western type, the type represented by the Portuguese slug, the arbutus trees and Mediterranean heaths of the Killarney district, the flora of Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, and the peculiar wild flowers of South Wales, Devonshire, and the west country generally. This class belongs by origin to the submerged land of Lyonesse, the warm champaign country that once spread westward over the Bay of Biscay, and derived138 from the Gulf Stream the genial107 climate still preserved by its last remnants at Tresco and St. Mary's. The animals belonging to this secondary stratum139 of our British population are few and rare, but of its plants there are not a few, some of them extending over the whole western shores of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, wherever they are washed by the Gulf Stream, and others now confined to particular spots, often with the oddest apparent capriciousness. Thus, two or three southern types of clover are peculiar to the Lizard42 Point, in Cornwall; a little Spanish and Italian restharrow has got stranded140 in the Channel Islands and on the Mull of Galloway; the spotted rock-rose of the Mediterranean grows only in Kerry, Galway, and Anglesea; while other plants of the same warm habit are confined to such spots as Torquay, Babbicombe, Dawlish, Cork, Swansea, Axminster, and the Scilly Isles. Of course, all peninsulas and islands are warmer in temperature than inland places, and so these relics of the lost Lyonesse have survived here and there in Cornwall, Carnarvonshire, Kerry, and other very projecting headlands long after they have died out altogether from the main central mass of Britain. South-western Ireland in particular is almost Portuguese in the general aspect of its fauna and flora.
Third and latest of all in time, though almost contemporary with the southern type, is the central European or Germanic element in our population. Sad as it is to confess it, the truth must nevertheless be told, that our beasts and birds, our plants and flowers, are for the most part of purely141 Teutonic origin. Even as the rude and hard-headed Anglo-Saxon has driven the gentle, poetical142, and imaginative Celt ever westward before him into the hills and the sea, so the rude and vigorous Germanic beasts and weeds have driven the gentler and softer southern types into Wales and Cornwall, Galloway and Connemara. It is to the central European population that we owe or owed the red deer, the wild boar, the bear, the wolf, the beaver, the fox, the badger46, the otter, and the squirrel. It is to the central European flora that we owe the larger part of the most familiar plants in all eastern and southeastern England. They crossed in bands over the old land belt before Britain was finally insulated, and they have gone on steadily143 ever since, with true Teutonic persistence144, overrunning the land and pushing slowly westward, like all other German bands before or since, to the detriment145 and discomfort146 of the previous inhabitants. Let us humbly147 remember that we are all of us at bottom foreigners alike, but that it is the Teutonic English, the people from the old Low Dutch fatherland by the Elbe, who have finally given to this isle its name of England, and to every one of us, Celt or Teuton, their own Teutonic name of Englishmen. We are at best, as an irate148 Teuton once remarked, 'nozzing but segond-hand Chermans.' In the words of a distinguished149 modern philologist150 of our own blood, 'English is Dutch, spoken with a Welsh accent.'
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
strictly
|
|
| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
isle
|
|
| n.小岛，岛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
conqueror
|
|
| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
followers
|
|
| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
reign
|
|
| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
highland
|
|
| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
remorse
|
|
| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
prehistoric
|
|
| adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
advent
|
|
| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
inspection
|
|
| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
colonists
|
|
| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
indigenous
|
|
| adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
isles
|
|
| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
offhand
|
|
| adj.临时，无准备的；随便，马虎的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
scotch
|
|
| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
alpine
|
|
| adj.高山的；n.高山植物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
wayfarers
|
|
| n.旅人，（尤指）徒步旅行者( wayfarer的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
oyster
|
|
| n.牡蛎；沉默寡言的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
cockroach
|
|
| n.蟑螂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
beetle
|
|
| n.甲虫，近视眼的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
tawny
|
|
| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
cynical
|
|
| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
fauna
|
|
| n.(一个地区或时代的)所有动物，动物区系 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
flora
|
|
| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
succinctly
|
|
| adv.简洁地；简洁地，简便地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
modesty
|
|
| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
epoch
|
|
| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
cove
|
|
| n.小海湾，小峡谷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
glaciers
|
|
| 冰河，冰川( glacier的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
reindeer
|
|
| n.驯鹿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
scanty
|
|
| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
walrus
|
|
| n.海象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
basked
|
|
| v.晒太阳，取暖( bask的过去式和过去分词 )；对…感到乐趣；因他人的功绩而出名；仰仗…的余泽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
chilly
|
|
| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
metropolitan
|
|
| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
vegetate
|
|
| v.无所事事地过活 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
continental
|
|
| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
transit
|
|
| n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
westward
|
|
| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
paucity
|
|
| n.小量，缺乏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
lizards
|
|
| n.蜥蜴( lizard的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
lizard
|
|
| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
toads
|
|
| n.蟾蜍，癞蛤蟆( toad的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
reptiles
|
|
| n.爬行动物，爬虫( reptile的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
badgers
|
|
| n.獾( badger的名词复数 )；獾皮；（大写）獾州人（美国威斯康星州人的别称）；毛鼻袋熊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
badger
|
|
| v.一再烦扰，一再要求，纠缠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
formerly
|
|
| adv.从前，以前 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
beaver
|
|
| n.海狸，河狸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
otter
|
|
| n.水獭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
positively
|
|
| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
previously
|
|
| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
intrepid
|
|
| adj.无畏的，刚毅的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
amphibians
|
|
| 两栖动物( amphibian的名词复数 )； 水陆两用车； 水旱两生植物； 水陆两用飞行器 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
lamented
|
|
| adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
feat
|
|
| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
grouse
|
|
| n.松鸡；v.牢骚，诉苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
moors
|
|
| v.停泊，系泊（船只）( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
willow
|
|
| n.柳树 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
insulation
|
|
| n.隔离；绝缘；隔热 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
domesticated
|
|
| adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
edible
|
|
| n.食品，食物；adj.可食用的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
snail
|
|
| n.蜗牛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
scattered
|
|
| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
luxurious
|
|
| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
epicures
|
|
| n.讲究饮食的人( epicure的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
naturalists
|
|
| n.博物学家( naturalist的名词复数 )；（文学艺术的）自然主义者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
immediate
|
|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
monks
|
|
| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
vessels
|
|
| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
brooks
|
|
| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
beetles
|
|
| n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
primitive
|
|
| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
fen
|
|
| n.沼泽，沼池 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
fens
|
|
| n.（尤指英格兰东部的）沼泽地带( fen的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
bass
|
|
| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
sluggish
|
|
| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
nettle
|
|
| n.荨麻；v.烦忧，激恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
denizens
|
|
| n.居民，住户( denizen的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
cultivation
|
|
| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
Mediterranean
|
|
| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
scarlet
|
|
| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
mantling
|
|
| 覆巾 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
84
limestone
|
|
| n.石灰石 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
boggy
|
|
| adj.沼泽多的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
profuse
|
|
| adj.很多的，大量的，极其丰富的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
ornament
|
|
| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
exterminated
|
|
| v.消灭，根绝( exterminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
brewer
|
|
| n. 啤酒制造者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
sufficiently
|
|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
remarkable
|
|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
varied
|
|
| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
spotted
|
|
| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
Portuguese
|
|
| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
disporting
|
|
| v.嬉戏，玩乐，自娱( disport的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
basking
|
|
| v.晒太阳，取暖( bask的现在分词 )；对…感到乐趣；因他人的功绩而出名；仰仗…的余泽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
placid
|
|
| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
mollusk
|
|
| n.软体动物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
groves
|
|
| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
cork
|
|
| n.软木，软木塞 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
reeks
|
|
| n.恶臭( reek的名词复数 )v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的第三人称单数 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
isolated
|
|
| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
ashore
|
|
| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
gulf
|
|
| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
hospitable
|
|
| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
genial
|
|
| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
dykes
|
|
| abbr.diagonal wire cutters 斜线切割机n.堤( dyke的名词复数 )；坝；堰；沟 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
sluices
|
|
| n.水闸( sluice的名词复数 )；（用水闸控制的）水；有闸人工水道；漂洗处v.冲洗( sluice的第三人称单数 )；（指水）喷涌而出；漂净；给…安装水闸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
jointed
|
|
| 有接缝的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
tarns
|
|
| n.冰斗湖，山中小湖( tarn的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
112
verge
|
|
| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
promptly
|
|
| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
annex
|
|
| vt.兼并，吞并；n.附属建筑物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
monasteries
|
|
| 修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
apothecary
|
|
| n.药剂师 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
superseded
|
|
| [医]被代替的，废弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
piously
|
|
| adv.虔诚地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
alleged
|
|
| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
insinuated
|
|
| v.暗示( insinuate的过去式和过去分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
humble
|
|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
bishops
|
|
| （基督教某些教派管辖大教区的）主教( bishop的名词复数 )； （国际象棋的）象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
insidious
|
|
| adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
thickets
|
|
| n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
etymological
|
|
| adj.语源的，根据语源学的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
memento
|
|
| n.纪念品，令人回忆的东西 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
relic
|
|
| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
chilliest
|
|
| adj.寒冷的，冷得难受的( chilly的最高级 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
relics
|
|
| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
drooping
|
|
| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
obsolete
|
|
| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
tracts
|
|
| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
solitary
|
|
| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
intrusive
|
|
| adj.打搅的；侵扰的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
monarch
|
|
| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
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： |
|
|
|
|
139
stratum
|
|
| n.地层，社会阶层 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
stranded
|
|
| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
purely
|
|
| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
poetical
|
|
| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
steadily
|
|
| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
persistence
|
|
| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
detriment
|
|
| n.损害；损害物，造成损害的根源 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
discomfort
|
|
| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
humbly
|
|
| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
irate
|
|
| adj.发怒的，生气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
distinguished
|
|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
philologist
|
|
| n.语言学者，文献学者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |