時差N小時:關(guān)于"北美燕八哥"的研究(上)

Brown-headed cowbirds are robin-sized blackbirds whose range covers most of North America. From a people’s point of view cowbirds arewhat we might call deadbeat parents. Cowbirds lay their eggs in the nests of other birdspecies, and the cowbird nestlings are raised by the foster parents. Since the cowbirds spendtheir formative months with birds of an entirely different species which has separate habits,songs, etc., “How does a cowbird know it’s a cowbird?” A good question, since singing the rightsongs and making the right moves are essential to establishing territory and attractingmates, it’s vital that one do these things right. One would think that the cowbird’s behaviorwould be “hardwired”, that it would just know what it is. But work done by Meredith West andher colleagues has shown that this is not the case.

【生詞注釋】

cowbird n.北美產(chǎn)的燕八哥

robin-sized 知更鳥般大小的

deadbeat a.游手好閑的

formative a.影響發(fā)展的

territory n.領(lǐng)地

hardwired adj.天生的

【參考譯文】

棕頭色的燕八哥是知更鳥般大小的黑鳥，它便不再北美的大部分地區(qū)。在人們看來，燕八哥是游手好閑的父母。它將蛋纏在其他鳥類的我中，幼鳥是由其他鳥類養(yǎng)育的。因為燕八哥在發(fā)育階段是和完全不同種類的鳥在一起生活，那些鳥的習(xí)慣和叫聲都不一樣。“燕八哥如何知道那是燕八哥嗎?問得好，因為適當(dāng)?shù)慕新暫秃线m的動作對于建立領(lǐng)地和吸引配偶來說都是基本的。燕八哥能正確地做這些事很重要。人們可能認(rèn)為燕八哥的行為是“天生的”， 燕八哥天生就知道該如何做。但是Meredith West和同事的研究表明事實并不是這樣。