T. H. GILLESPIE Spare that Spider from The Listener
New words and expressions
生词短语
flocks and herds牛群和羊群
／flCk/
the birds of the same feather flock together.物以类聚，人以群分
but,yet－不加标点，only at the beginning of the sentence therefore－自由
so－自由
tool:小工具instrument:实验器械equipment:设备
shape:成型；教育，改造may also have:表推测peel:果皮
leather:皮革
But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first‘modern men’came from.
any,never went to visit him when he was hospitalized.
find out千方百计，费尽周折＝explore modern men :the men who were like ourselves however－anywhere you want ,加逗号
Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even nearly related to them. One can tell the difference almost at a glance for a spider always has eight legs and an insect never more than six.
Lesson 1 Finding fossil man
发现化石人
We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write.
But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas----legends handed down from one generation of storytellers to another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none couldwritedownwhattheydid.Anthropologistswonderedwheretheremote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.
remote/ ri’m[ut/ n.遥远
ancestor /‘Ansest[/ n.祖先
an
在前面
forefather,forebear，predec烂掉
leave me rot.＝leave me along
rot to death.
soon ripe,soon rotten.
Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. Theymay also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.
How many spiders are engaged in this work on our behalf ? One authority on spiders made a census of the spiders in a grass field in the south of England, and he estimated that there were more than2,250,000 inone acre, that is something like 6,000,000 spiders of different kinds on a footballpitch. Spiders arebusy for atleasthalfthe year inkillinginsects. It is impossible to makemore than the wildest guess at howmanythey kill,but they are hungry creatures, not contentwith onlythreemeals a day.It has beenestimatedthat theweight of all the insects destroyed byspiders in Britain in one year would begreaterthan the total weightof all the human beings in the country.
重复
describe
depict：a little emotional
narrate：temporal&spacial根据时间或空间顺序描述。
portray：描述
saga /’sa:g[/ n.英雄故事
描述的内容mostly real北欧海盗活动的故事
legend /’ledV[nd/ n.传说，传奇
you are the same flock.也可指人
herd多指牛群
cowherdcowboy
throngandcrowd swarm
owe /[U/ vt.感激,欠
i owe you.
i owe you a big favor.
欠issue obligeindebt appreciate----常用口语词正式：gratefulthankful
beast /bi: st/ n兽
unreal e.g robin hood
anthropologist/‘AnWr[’pCl[dVist/ n.人类学家
anthrop：人
philosophere :philo＋sopher|爱＋智慧＝哲学家
philanthropist :慈善家（对人有爱心的人）
anthropology :人类学
带-gy结尾的都是学科：biology生物学geography地理学ecology生态学
hide:兽皮
cowhide:牛皮
without (any) trace:无影无踪
Lesson 2 Spare that spider
别伤害蜘蛛
Why, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends ? Because they destroy so many insects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the human race. Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world; they would devour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds, if it were not for the protection we get from insect-eating animals. We owe a lot to the birds and beasts who eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders. Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters, spiders never do the least harm to us or our belongings.
flint /flint/ n.燧石flinting hearted
fossil /
‘fCsl/ n.化石cobble鹅卵石Notes on the text
课文注释read of读到
谈到：speak of ,talk of ,know of,hear of
near east：近东mediterranean, south europe,north afric far east