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第一段
1 .One of the most famous cases of extinction is that of a bird known as the dodo.
最著名的灭绝案例之一是一种被称为渡渡鸟的鸟类。
2 .In fact there’s even a saying in English, as dead as the dodo’, used to refer to something which no longer exists.
事实上，英语中甚至有一句谚语‘像渡渡鸟一样死了’，用来指已经不存在的东西。
3 .But for many centuries the dodo was alive and well, although it could only be found in one place, the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.
但是许多世纪以来渡渡鸟都活得好好的，虽然它只能在印度洋上的毛里求斯岛找到。
4 .It was a very large bird, about one metre tall, and over the centuries it had lost the ability to fly, but it survived happily under the trees that covered the island.
这是一只非常大的鸟，大约一米高，几个世纪以来它已经失去了飞行的能力，但它在覆盖小岛的树下快乐地生存着。
5 .Then in the year 1507 the first Portuguese ships stopped at the island.
然后在1507年，第一批葡萄牙船只停在了岛上。
6 .The sailors were carrying spices back to Europe, and found the island a convenient stopping place where they could stock up with food and water for the rest of the voyage, but they didn’t settle on Mauritius.
水手们正把香料带回欧洲，他们发现这个岛是一个方便的停靠点，可以在剩下的航程中储存食物和水，但他们没有在毛里求斯定居。
7 .However, in 1638 the Dutch arrived and set up a colony there. These first human inhabitants of the island found the dodo birds a convenient source of meat, although not everyone liked the taste.
然而，1638年荷兰人到了那里并在那里建立了殖民地。岛上的这些第一批人类居民发现渡渡鸟是一种方便的肉类来源，尽管不是每个人都喜欢这种味道。
8 .It’s hard to get an accurate description of what the dodo actually looked like. We do have some written records from sailors, and a few pictures, but we don’t know how reliable these are.
很难准确描述渡渡鸟的真实模样。我们确实有一些水手的书面记录，还有几张图片，但我们不知道这些有多可靠。
9 .The best-known picture is a Dutch painting in which the bird appears to be extremely fat, but this may not be accurate – an Indian painting done at the same time shows a much thinner bird.
最著名的图片是一幅荷兰画，画中的鸟看起来极其肥胖，但这可能并不准确——同时画的一幅印度画显示的是一只瘦得多的鸟。
10 .Although attempts were made to preserve the bodies of some of the birds, no complete specimen survives.
尽管人们试图保存一些鸟类的尸体，但没有完整的标本存活下来。
11 .In the early 17th century four dried parts of a bird were known to exist – of these, three have disappeared, so only one example of soft tissue from the dodo survives, a dodo head.
在17世纪早期，已知有四个鸟的干燥部分——其中三个已经消失，所以只有一个渡渡鸟软组织的例子幸存了下来，那就是渡渡鸟的头部。
12 .Bones have also been found, but there’s only one complete skeleton in existence.This single dodo skeleton has recently been the subject of scientific research which suggests that many of the earlier beliefs about dodos may have been incorrect.
骨头也找到了，但现存的完整骨架只有一具。这个单个的渡渡鸟骨架最近成为了科学研究的主题，这表明许多早期关于渡渡鸟的看法可能是不正确的。
13 .For example, early accounts of the birds mention how slow and clumsy it was, but scientists now believe the bird’s strong knee joints would have made it capable of movement which was not slow, but actually quite fast.
例如，早期关于鸟类的报道提到了它有多慢多笨拙，但科学家现在认为，鸟类强壮的膝关节会使它有能力运动，这并不慢，但实际上相当快。
14 .In fact, one 17th century sailor wrote that he found the birds hard to catch. It’s true that the dodo’s small wings wouldn’t have allowed it to leave the ground, but the scientists suggest that these were probably employed for balance while going over uneven ground.
事实上，一位17世纪的水手写道，他发现这些鸟很难抓到。渡渡鸟的小翅膀确实不允许它离开地面，但科学家们认为这些翅膀可能是用来在不平的地面上保持平衡的。
15 .Another group of scientists carried out analysis of the dodo’s skull.They found that the reports of the lack of intelligence of the dodo were not borne out by their research, which suggested the bird’s brain was not small, but average in size.
另一组科学家对渡渡鸟的头骨进行了分析。他们发现，有关渡渡鸟智力低下的报道并没有被他们的研究证实。研究表明，这种鸟的大脑并不小，而是平均尺寸大小。
16 .In fact, in relation to its body size, it was similar to that of the pigeon, which is known to be a highly intelligent bird.
事实上，就它的体型而言，它和鸽子差不多，鸽子是一种众所周知的高智商鸟类。
17 .The researchers also found that the structure of the bird’s skull suggested that one sense which was particularly well-developed was that of smell.
研究人员还发现，鸟的头骨结构表明，一种特别发达的感觉是嗅觉。
18 .So the dodo may also have been particularly good at locating ripe fruit and other food in the island’s thick vegetation. So it looks as if the dodo was better able to survive and defend itself than was originally believed.
所以渡渡鸟可能也特别擅长在岛上茂密的植被中寻找成熟的水果和其他食物。因此，渡渡鸟的生存和自卫能力似乎比人们最初认为的要强。
19 .Yet less than 200 years after Europeans first arrived on the island, they had become extinct.
然而在欧洲人第一次来到岛上不到200年后，他们就灭绝了。
20 .So what was the reason for this?
那么这是什么原因呢？
21 .For a long time, it was believed that the dodos were hunted to extinction, but scientists now believe the situation was more complicated than this.
很长一段时间，人们认为渡渡鸟被猎杀到灭绝，但科学家现在认为情况比这更复杂。
22 .Another factor may have been the new species brought to the island by the sailors.
另一个因素可能是水手带到岛上的新物种。
23 .These included dogs, which would have been a threat to the dodos, and also monkeys, which ate the fruit that was the main part of the dodos’ diet.
其中包括对渡渡鸟构成威胁的狗，还有猴子，它们吃的水果是渡渡鸟饮食的主要部分。
24 .These were brought to the island deliberately, but the ships also brought another type of creature – rats, which came to land from the ships and rapidly overran the island.
这些都是故意带到岛上的，但船上也带来了另一种生物——老鼠，它们从船上来到岛上，迅速占领了小岛。
25 .These upset the ecology of the island, not just the dodos but other species too.
这些破坏了岛上的生态，不仅是渡渡鸟，还有其他物种。
26 .However, they were a particular danger to the dodos because they consumed their eggs, and since each dodo only laid one at a time, this probably had a devastating effect on populations.
然而，它们对渡渡鸟来说是一个特别的危险，因为它们吃掉了自己的蛋，由于每只渡渡鸟一次只产一只，这可能会对种群造成毁灭性的影响。
27 .However, we now think that probably the main cause of the birds’ extinction was not the introduction of non-native species, but the introduction of agriculture.
然而，我们现在认为鸟类灭绝的主要原因可能不是外来物种的引入，而是农业的引入。
28 .This meant that the forest that had once covered all the island, and that had provided a perfect home for the dodo, was cut down so that crops such as sugar could be grown.
这意味着曾经覆盖全岛，为渡渡鸟提供完美家园的森林被砍伐，以便种植糖等作物。
29 .So although the dodo had survived for thousands of years, suddenly it was gone.
所以尽管渡渡鸟已经存活了几千年，但突然它就不见了。