海底兩萬里 第278期 第21章 在陸地上的兩天(10)

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Meanwhile I was examining this unusual bird. Conseil was not mistaken. Tipsy from that potent juice, our bird of paradise had been reduced to helplessness. It was unable to fly. It was barely able to walk. But this didn't alarm me, and I just let it sleep off its nutmeg.

我于是檢查一下這只奇異的鳥。康塞爾沒有搞錯。無雙烏被豆寇汁迷醉了，使得它癱軟無力。它不能飛，走路也很困難。但我用不著為它擔(dān)心，讓它好好地睡它的酒后覺就是了。

This bird belonged to the finest of the eight species credited to Papua and its neighboring islands. It was a "great emerald," one of the rarest birds of paradise. It measured three decimeters long. Its head was comparatively small, and its eyes, placed near the opening of its beak, were also small. But it offered a wonderful mixture of hues: a yellow beak, brown feet and claws, hazel wings with purple tips, pale yellow head and scruff of the neck, emerald throat, the belly and chest maroon to brown. Two strands, made of a horn substance covered with down, rose over its tail, which was lengthened by long, very light feathers of wonderful fineness, and they completed the costume of this marvelous bird that the islanders have poetically named "the sun bird."

這只無雙鳥屬于巴布亞和鄰近群島出產(chǎn)的八種無雙鳥中最美的一種。這是“大翡翠”無雙鳥，最罕有的一種。它有三分米長，頭比較小，眼睛也不大，就在嘴近邊。它的嘴是黃色，腳爪和指甲是褐色，翼是臻子色，翼端是朱紅色，頭上和頸后是淡黃色，喉間是翡翠色，腹部和胸部是栗子色，因此，它看來像是十分華麗的各種色彩的綜合。而且尾巴上聳起兩個角形的絨毛綠球，和很細(xì)膩的很輕飄的細(xì)長羽毛連接，好像拖垂的長帶，于是這一切就把這只奇鳥的整個形象完全美化起來了，所以當(dāng)?shù)厣先撕茉娨獾胤Q它為“太陽的鳥”。

How I wished I could take this superb bird of paradise back to Paris, to make a gift of it to the zoo at the Botanical Gardens, which doesn't own a single live specimen.

我很希望能把這只好看的無雙鳥帶回巴黎去，送給植物園，因為園中還沒有一只活的無雙鳥。

"So it must be a rarity or something?" the Canadian asked, in the tone of a hunter who, from the viewpoint of his art, gives the game a pretty low rating.

“這鳥真是很罕見嗎廣加拿大人問，用一種不從美術(shù)的觀點來估計獵物的口氣。

"A great rarity, my gallant comrade, and above all very hard to capture alive. And even after they're dead, there's still a major market for these birds. So the natives have figured out how to create fake ones, like people create fake pearls or diamonds.

“十分罕見，我老實的同伴，特別是十分難得捉到活的。就是死了，這些鳥仍然是重要的貿(mào)易對象。所以上人想法制造假的，像制造珍珠和鉆石一樣。”