英语高级口语教程(8)

cat wanted to say "Stop writing !" to his master, he often put out Dickens' candle with his paw!

When animals become pets, the result, after a number of generations, is a smaller animal

with a smaller brain. Rabbits, for example, which live as pets in a garden, are much less intelligent than their wild cousins. Of course, man doesn't always keep animals for pleasure. Many animals have to work for their masters.

There was once a farm in Namibia, Africa, which had 80 goats. Instead of a goatherd, there was a female baboon. She took her goats to the hills every day and brought them back at night. She always knew exactly which goats were hers-which is more than many humans could do!

5. Do Animals Communicate?

When we think of communication, we normally think of using words-talking face-to-face, writing messages and so on. But in fact we communicate far more in other ways. Our eyes and facial expressions usually tell the truth even when our words do not.

Then there are gestures, often unconscious: raising the eyebrows, rubbing the nose, shrugging the shoulders, tapping the fingers, nodding and shaking the head.

There is also the even more subtle "body language" of posture: are you sitting-or

standing-with arms or legs crossed? Is that person standing with hands in pockets, held in front of the body or hidden behind? Even the way we dress and the colours we wear communicate things to others.

So, do animals communicate? Not in words, although a parrot might be trained to repeat words and phrases which it doesn't understand. But, as we have learnt, there is more to communication than words.

Take dogs for example. They bare their teeth to warn, wag their tails to welcome and

stand firm, with hair erect, to challenge. These signals are surely the canine equivalent of the human body-language of facial expression, gesture and posture.

Colour can be an important means of communication for animals. Many birds and fish change colour, for example, to attract partners during the mating season. And mating itself is commonly preceded by a special dance in which both partners participate.

6. She's All for the Birds !

Twice a week, 58-year-old Mrs. Winifred Cass shops in the market for her main supplies, "topping up" daily by calling at local shops on her way home from work. But she's not buying family groceries!

She returns home laden with heavy bags of mixed hen corn, pigeon corn, peanuts and large packets of bird food to feed her larger "family", the wild birds of needs. And she's been doing this for 16 years.

Daily, she feeds the birds which frequent her garden, the area around the shop where

she works part-time, and several patches of waste-ground near her home. Then, twice every