首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The ivory-billed woodpecker, if you haven’ t heard, is no longer extinct. In late spring, a group of 17 researchers announced in
The ivory-billed woodpecker, if you haven’ t heard, is no longer extinct. In late spring, a group of 17 researchers announced in
admin
2010-04-28
60
问题
The ivory-billed woodpecker, if you haven’ t heard, is no longer extinct. In late spring, a group of 17 researchers announced in the online version of Science that they had spotted at least one member of this majestic species living in the cypress and tupelo swamps of eastern Arkansas. Once found everywhere in Southern hardwood forests, the ivory-billed woodpecker tumbled in population after the turn of the century, the victim of avid collectors and logging. It had last been seen in 1944, reduced to what Tim Gallagher, author of "The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker," calls "a symbol of everything that has gone wrong with our relationship to the environment."
"The Grail Bird" is the story of this remarkable rediscovery, told by one of the chief rediscoverers. The editor of Living Bird magazine, Gallagher began the book several years ago with milder ambitions. The plan was to interview anyone who had seen the bird -- or thought he or she had. Soon, though, he was swept into a web of tantalizing rumors and half-clues, propelled by the possibility that a living ivory-bill might yet be found. "If someone……could prove that this remarkable species still exists, it would be the most hopeful event imaginable: we would have one final chance to get it right, to save this bird and the bottomland swamp forests it needs to urvive." Hope was a thing with a three-foot wingspan.
"The Grail Bird" is less an ecological study than a portrait of human obsession; if not for the outcome, it could as easily be a book about the hunt for Bigfoot. Gallagher stakes out swamps teeming with alligators and cottonmouths. He sifts through shady evidence, from fuzzy Instamatic photographs to bags of bark shavings -- peeled, possibly, by the ivory-billed woodpecker in its search for beetle grubs. He suffers bloodied feet and an infected knee. His closest companion, Bobby Ray Harrison, a wildlife photographer and an arts professor at Oakwood College, dresses in full camouflage gear and canoes with a camcorder attached to his helmet. Sasquatch chasers," Gallagher’ s wife calls them. Yet for all the shenanigans, his book is an insightful look at what most biological fieldwork involves: a lot of sweating, sitting and waiting for ghosts to -- maybe -- make themselves real.
As tales go, "The Grail Bird" isn’t the most stylishly told. Gallagher lets his characters talk at too-great length, and the incidental details are sometimes overly incidental. ("After pigging out on bad burgers, we got a room at a cheap motel and quickly fell into a deep, exhausted sleep with lots of snoring.") But most readers probably won’ t mind. As some rivers are to be enjoyed not for the quality of the water but for the quality of the stones to be found therein, so it is with some books. Gallagher presents a series of lively characters: Fielding Lewis, a former Louisiana state boxing commissioner who in 1971 took two fuzzy photographs of the wood pecker that were subsequently -- and perhaps mistakenly -- discredited; an anonymous "woodpecker whisperer" who claims to have a telepathic connection to the birds, even a thousand miles away. (One group of searchers failed, they were told, because they were noisily scaring off the bird.)
Oddly missing from this recounting is any extended focus on the ivory-billed woodpecker itself. Granted, the bird has been invisible for decades, a presence notable largely for its absence. Still, the book might have given us the animal’ s history in more detail -- something to convey the visceral appeal of this "grail." Without that, the quest -- though triumphant -- at times feels hollow, and the fulfillment of the author’ s obsession veers perilously close to sounding like an end in itself.
Which of the following statements is NOT true?
选项
A、Fielding Lewis has taken two pictures of the bird, but it was too fuzzy and he was mistakenly discredited
B、The author believes that the woodpecker-whisperer do have a telepathic connection to the birds.
C、The quality of the book may not so perfect in itself, but there is still something to be cherished and reflected on.
D、There is much sweating, sitting and waiting before the completion of the book.
答案
B
解析
因为文中作者使用了“claim”一词,表示这个人宣称是这样,但事实不一定。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Z3qO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Isloyaltyintheworkplacedead?Justrecently,LyndaGratton,aworkplaceexpert,proclaimedthatitwas.InTheFinancial
Inthefirsthalfofthe20thcentury,thefastesturbangrowthwasinWesterncities.NewYork,LondonandotherFirstWorldca
A、Hefeltcomfortableaboutit.B、Hethoughtitwaseasytopass.C、Hesortofworriedaboutit.D、Hethoughtofquittingit.C
WhatisthetallestmountainonEarth?Mostschoolchildrenwillsaytheansweris【C1】______neartheborderbetweenNepalandTi
PresidentBushonWednesdayissuedhissecondvetoofameasureliftinghisrestrictionsonhumanembryonicstemcellexperiment
A、Theeffectsofcaffeine.B、Somecausesofheadaches.C、Howtodowellonexams.D、Problemswiththestudentcafeteria.A
Education【C1】______inthemodernizationofourcountry.Thereare,however,still【C2】______childreninremoteruralareaswho
Recently,AlexStenner,asophomoreattheUniversityofWisconsin-GreenBay,savedhundredsofdollarsontuitionandhoursspe
JosephEpstein,afamousAmericanwriter,oncesaid,"Wedecidewhatisimportantandwhatistrivialinlife.Wedecide(so)th
"Foraweekafterthecommissionoftheimpiousandprofaneoffenceofaskingformore,Oliverremainedacloseprisonerinthe
随机试题
分离培养副流感病毒最敏感的细胞是
患者,男,40岁,烈日炎炎下进行高温作业,突发头晕、头痛,口渴,出汗,继而体温升高达40℃以上,出现皮肤无汗,干热,昏迷情况。下列措施不正确的是
小儿厌食脾运失健证的治则是小儿厌食脾胃气虚证的治则是
吐温类表面活性剂具有
按()分类,可以将商标分为商品商标、服务商标、集体商标和证明商标。
个人住房贷款中银行的合作机构包括()。
下列词语中,感情色彩相同的一项是()。
下列诗句按其所描写的节气的先后顺序,排列正确的是()。①春分雨脚落声微,柳岸斜风带客归②新春一声雷未闻,何得龙蛇已惊蛰③今朝立春好天气,况是太平朝野时④白云峰下两枪新,腻绿长鲜谷雨春
A、It’seasytolocate.B、It’sinaverywindyarea.C、It’sexceptionallybeautiful.D、It’spartiallycoveredbywater.BWhat?did
AsvideogamegiantslikeSonyandMicrosofttoutedtheirnewgizmosattheTokyoGameShowthisweek,industryexecutiveshadm
最新回复
(
0
)