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打印
that if you wished to find all the dodos in a vicinity you had only to catch one and set it to squawking,
要是你想找到附近的所有渡渡鳥，你只要抓住其中的一只，并且讓它叫個不停，
and all the others would waddle along to see what was up.
所有其他的同類就會搖搖擺擺地走過來，看看究竟發生了什么事。
The indignities to the poor dodo didn't end quite there.
對于可憐的渡渡鳥的摧殘并沒有到此為止。
In 1755, some seventy years after the last dodo's death, the director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford
在最后一只渡渡鳥死后大約70年，也就是1755年，牛津阿什莫利恩博物館的館長
decided that the institution's stuffed dodo was becoming unpleasantly musty and ordered it tossed on a bonfire.
發現該館的渡渡鳥標本發了霉，就命令手下的人將它扔到火里燒掉。
This was a surprising decision as it was by this time the only dodo in existence, stuffed or otherwise.
這真是一個令人吃驚的決定，因為那可是世上僅有的——不論是標本還是活物一只渡渡鳥了。
A passing employee, aghast, tried to rescue the bird but could save only its head and part of one limb.
一個碰巧路過的員工被他的這一舉動嚇壞了，試圖將那只鳥從火中救出來，可是最終只救出了它的頭和一部分腿。
As a result of this and other departures from common sense, we are not now entirely sure what a living dodo was like.
這樣做的結果，以及由于別的背離常識的舉動，我們現在幾乎不能完全確定一只活著的渡渡鳥長什么樣。
We possess much less information than most people suppose
我們所擁有的信息比大多數人想像的要少得多
a handful of crude descriptions by "unscientific voyagers, three or four oil paintings, and a few scattered osseous fragments," in the somewhat aggrieved words of the nineteenth-century naturalist H. E. Strickland.
正如19世紀博物學家H.R.斯特里克蘭不無慍怒地描繪的那樣，“幾個不值科學的海員”寫的幾段簡單的描述、“三四幅油畫，以及幾塊散落的骨頭碎片”，就是有關渡渡鳥的全部資料。
As Strickland wistfully observed, we have more physical evidence of some ancient sea monsters and lumbering saurapods
依照斯特里克蘭的說法，我們所掌握的有關一些古代海獸和龐大的蜥腳類動物的資料比渡渡鳥還要具體得多。
than we do of a bird that lived into modern times and required nothing of us to survive except our absence.
而后者一直生存到現代，它們對我們別無所求，只要求我們遠離它們，以便活下去。
So what is known of the dodo is this: it lived on Mauritius, was plump but not tasty, and was the biggest-ever member of the pigeon family,
綜合起來，我們所知道的有關渡渡鳥的情況足這樣的：它生活于毛里求斯，體態豐滿，但味道并不鮮美，是鳩鴿家族中個兒最大的成員。
though by quite what margin is unknown as its weight was never accurately recorded.
不過，它的個兒究竟有多大，我們不知道，因為它的體重從未有過精確的記錄。
Extrapolations from Strickland's "osseous fragments" and the Ashmolean's modest remains show that it was a little over two and a half feet tall
根據斯特里克蘭所提到的“骨頭碎片”以及阿什莫利恩的殘缺標本，我們可以大致推測出它的身高約80厘米，
and about the same distance from beak tip to backside.
從嘴尖到臀部的距離幾乎相等。
