发布时间 : 星期六 文章选修9 课文与翻译更新完毕开始阅读
The seas around Australia contain over 160 different kinds of shark, which vary in size from just 20 centimetres to over 14 metres. However, although they look dangerous because of their wide mouths and sharp teeth, all but two or three kinds are harmless to humans.
在环绕着澳大利亚的海域里有 160多种鲨鱼，它们的体长从20厘米到14米不等。尽管它们有宽大的嘴巴和锋利的牙齿，看上去很危险，然而除了两三种之外，其余的对人类并没有危害。
Another potentially dangerous sea animal is the jellyfish. Most kinds of poisonous jellyfish can cause severe pain to anyone who touches them but the poison of the box jellyfish can actually kill a human, especially if that person has a weak heart. The tiniest amount of poison from a box jellyfish can kill in less than five minutes and it is probably the most poisonous animal in the world.
另外一种具有潜在危险的海洋动物就是水母。多数有毒水母都会使任何触碰到它们的人痛苦万分，而箱水母的毒素则足以致人死亡，特别是如果这个人的心脏虚弱的话。箱水母极少量的毒素就可以在五分钟内致人死命，它也许是世界上最毒的动物。
There is one other dangerous animal in Australia worth mentioning, and that is the crocodile. Although two types of crocodile live in Australia, only the saltwater crocodile has been known to kill humans. This crocodile moves very quickly when it sees something it considers to be food, and from time to time a crocodile has snatched someone before he or she is even aware that the crocodile is there.
澳大利亚还有一种值得一提的危险动物就是鳄鱼。虽然澳大利亚有两种类型的鳄鱼，但是我们只知道咸水鳄才会致人于死地。当这种鳄鱼看到某个东西并认为是食物的时候，它就会迅速行动，就这样时常捕获(snatch)住那些还未来得及察觉到鳄鱼的人。
You might think that with all these dangerous animals Australia is an unsafe place to live in or visit. However, this is far from the truth. There are no more than a handful of shark attacks each year and only three deaths have been reported in the last five years.Similarly, in the last three years there have been only two reported deaths from crocodile attacks. Since 1956, when an anti-venom treatment for redback spider bites was developed, there have been no deaths from redbacks, and since 1981 when a treatment was developed for funnelweb spider poison, there have been no deaths from this spider either. Treatments for jellyfish stings and s~aakebites have also been developed and in the last five years there have been only three deaths from jellyfish stings and about the same number from snakebites.
澳大利亚有这么多危险的动物，你也许会认为在这里居住或到这里旅游很不安全。但事实并非如此。每年只有少量的鲨鱼袭人事件，而且在过去五年里，只有三例死亡报道。与此相似的是在过去的三年间也只有两起鳄鱼袭击致死的报道。1956 年研制出一种治疗红背毒蜘蛛咬伤(anti-venom)的疗法，以后就再没有发生过红背蜘蛛咬死人的事件了。1981年研制出一种对付漏斗蜘蛛的疗法,那以后就也没有人因此而死亡。治疗水母刺伤和毒蛇咬伤的方法也已经研制成功。在过去
的五年里只有三人死于水母刺伤，这与被蛇咬伤致死的人数大体相同。
选修9 Unit 4 Exploring plants-Reading
PLANT EXPLORATION IN THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES The plants in our gardens look so familiar that often we do not realize that many of them actually come from countries far away. Collecting \ancient civilisations saw the value of bringing back plants from distant lands. The first plant collecting expedition recorded in history was around 1500 BC when the Queen of Egypt sent ships away to gather plants, animals and other goods.
第四单元
18 世纪和 19 世纪的植物探索
我们花园里的植物看上去是那么熟悉,以致我们常常意识不到在这些植物中有许多实际上来自遥远的国度。收集所谓的“异国”(exotic)植物要追溯(date back to)到很久以前。许多古老文化都懂得从遥远的地方把植物带回来的价值。历史上有记载的第一个收集植物的探险是在公元前 1500 年，埃及女王派出船只去收集植物、动物以及其他货物。
However, it was not until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that the exploration of the botanical world began on a large scale. Europe had become interested in scientific discovery and the European middle classes took great interest in collecting new plants. This attraction to exotic plants
grew as European nations, like the Netherlands, Britain and Spain, moved into other parts of the world like Asia and Australia. Brave young men took the opportunity of going on botanical expeditions, often facing many dangers including disease,near-starvation, severe environments and conflicts with the local people.
然而，直到 18 世纪和 19 世纪人们对植物世界大规模(scale)的探索才开始。那时欧洲对抖学发现已经倍感兴趣，而欧洲的中产阶级则特别热衷于收集新的植物。随着欧洲人，如荷兰、英国和西班牙向世界其他地区，如亚洲和澳洲的迁徙，这种对异域植物的吸吸引也在增长。勇敢的年轻人借机进行植物探索活动，他们常常面临许多危险，如疾病、饥饿、严酷的环境以及同当地居民的冲突。
An important group of collectors were Frencn Catholic missionaries who, by the middle of the 18th century, were beginning to set themselves up in China. One such missionary, Father d'Incarville, was sent to Beijing in the 1740s. He collected seeds of trees and bushes including those of the Tree of Heaven. Just before he died, he sent some Tree of Heaven seeds to England. They arrived in 1751 and plants from these seeds were grown throughout Europe and later, in 1784, the species was introduced in North America.
有一群重要的收集者是法国天主教教士(missionaries) 18 世纪中叶，他们开始进入中国。其中有一位叫汤执中的传教士于 18 世纪 40年代被派赴北京。他收集了树种、灌木种，其中包括天堂树的种子。就在他去世之前，他还把一些天堂树的种子送到了英国。1751 年它们