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
2010-05-14
73
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 tam 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 survive." 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 ail the shenanigans, his book is an insightful look at what most biological fieldwork involves: a tot 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 woodpecker 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.
By saying that the book of "Grail Bird" could "easily be a book about the hunt for Bigfoot", the author means that______
选项
A、the book is merely about the hunt for impossible things.
B、if the bird had not been discovered by the researchers, the book would have been like all the books about Bigfoot - only legends, no facts and truths.
C、the hunt for the ivory-billed woodpecker enjoys similarity to the hunt for Bigfoot, because both of them are rare animals.
D、the book is about the human obsession of finding legendary animals and about their guilty conscience facing nature.
答案
B
解析
选项A不对,因为这并不是一本单纯关于寻找根本不存在的事物的读本,而有其更深刻的意义。C不对因为这里的“大脚怪”代指一切只存在于传说中而非现实中的动物,如果这本书最后变成像追寻“大脚怪”的书一样,则表示动物没有找到,书只是人类一系列盲目猜想的集合。D不对并不是因为这句话说错了,而是因为与这句话的意思不符,原文这种句话是说“要不是作者最后发现了这种奇异的鸟类,这本书很可能会像所有讲述寻找大脚怪的书一样,只是一堆空想的集合,没有最终结果”。因此选择B。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/waqO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
A、Differentskinsreactinsimilarwaystosunlight.B、Theexpertopinionis:Donotoverdoasuntan.C、Lyingoutinthesuntwi
A、Thehugerolesomepeopleplayintransmittingideas.B、Thetransmissionofepidemicdiseases.C、Exceptionalepidemicdiseases
Psychologistshavemanytheoriestoexplainhowwerememberinformation.The【C1】______isthatmemoryworksasakindofstorage
Psychologistshavemanytheoriestoexplainhowwerememberinformation.The【C1】______isthatmemoryworksasakindofstorage
Listeningisoneofthefirstthingswelearntodoandoneofthethingswedomost.Theaveragepersonspends【C1】______ofthei
AformerGovernmentchiefscientistoncetoldmethatweshouldalwayshaveaPlanBreadyincasePlanAdoesn’twork—ordoesn’
Ifyouhaveeverwonderedjusthowharditisforkidsfrombrokenneighborhoodstoavoidprison,aglanceatdatacompiledbyt
Thesedayssearchingforanumber【C1】______telephonedirectoryseemsveryold-fashioned.Voicerecognitionsystemsarebecoming
Thesedayssearchingforanumber【C1】______telephonedirectoryseemsveryold-fashioned.Voicerecognitionsystemsarebecoming
A、Theassassinationofthepopularformerprimeministermonthsago.B、TheUnitedStatesisencouragingdemocracybychallenging
随机试题
《建设工程安全生产管理条例》第14条规定,工程监理单位和监理工程师应当按照法律、法规和工程建设强制性标准实施监理,并对建设工程安全生产承担()。
细胞兴奋的标志是
有关ATP合酶的叙述错误的是
单身期指从工作至结婚的这段时期,一般为2~8年,这个时期能够承受的风险较大,可以适当进行积极投资。
下列措施中,只能提高安全边际而不能降低保本点的是()。
科学发展观标志着我们党在三大方面的认识达到了新水平、新高度。这三大方面的认识不包括()。
一般来说,下列哪些是在正式组织中才能得到满足的?
短时记忆的容量为()个组块。
求.
Somepeopleprefertogetupearlyinthemorningandstarttheclay’swork.Othersprefertogetuplaterinthedayandworku
最新回复
(
0
)