Brown-headed cowbirds are robin-sized black birds whose range covers most of North America. From a people’s point of view cowbirds are what we might call deadbeat parents. Cowbirds lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species, and the cowbird nestlings are raised by the foster parents. Since the cowbirds spend their 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 right songs and making the right moves are essential to establishing territory and attracting mates, it’s vital that one do these things right. One would think that the cowbird’s behavior would be “hardwired”, that it would just know what it is. But work done by Meredith West and her colleagues has shown that this is not the case.

【生詞注釋】

cowbird n.北美產的燕八哥

robin-sized 知更鳥般大小的

deadbeat a.游手好閑的

formative a.影響發展的

territory n.領地

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。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育的。因為燕八哥在發育階段是和完全不同種類的鳥在一起生活，那些鳥的習慣和叫聲都不一樣?！把喟烁缛绾沃滥鞘茄喟烁鐔幔繂柕煤?，因為適當的叫聲和合適的動作對于建立領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。