全新版 大学英语 听说教程 第三册 听力原文Tap(3)

全新版 大学英语 听说教程 第三册 听力原文

miles an hour! The butterflies travel and eat during the day. When it cools off at night, they rest in trees. The morning sun warms them, and they continue their migration.

Some of the butterflies were traced south across Florida. Many were traced through Texas into Mexico. But there the trail was lost.

Statements:

1. The monarch butterflies have orange-gold, black and white colors on their wings.

2. According to the passage, scientists failed to find the winter home of monarchs from western United States.

3. The Canadian zoologist, Fred Urquhart, spent several decades trying to solve the mystery of the missing monarch butterflies.

4. Urquhart and many volunteers marked thousands of butterflies by attaching tags to them.

5. Each tag bore a code name and the address of Urquhart's Toronto home.

6. The butterflies can fly ten miles an hour and some can even go at eighty miles an hour.

7. The butterflies are actually tougher than we expected.

8. The scientist lost the trail of the butterflies, though some were traced south across Florida and many, through Texas into Mexico.

Part D

The Missing Monarchs (Part Two)

For years Mr. Urquhart and his colleagues wondered where the migratory monarchs spent the winter. Despite their hopes, fieldwork in Florida and along the Gulf Coast discovered no large groups of wintering monarchs. Then in late 1972, his wife Norah wrote to newspapers in Mexico about the project, asking for volunteers to report sightings of the butterfly and help with tagging. Finally, in response came a letter, dated February 26, 1973, from a man called Kenneth Brugger in Mexico City, who offered to help find the butterfly hideaway.

Traveling in his motor home, Brugger drove back and forth across the Mexican countryside, looking for clues. He was especially watchful at dusk, when the butterflies would be moving about looking for a place to sleep.

At last, one day was successful. On the evening of January 9, 1975, Brugger called from Mexico. "I have found them -- millions of monarchs -- in evergreens beside a mountain clearing," he said, unable to control the excitement in his voice.

High in a range of volcanic mountains that crosses central Mexico, he came upon hundreds of evergreen trees, each entirely hidden by sleeping butterflies. Some of the insects wore tags that Mr. Urquhart and his helpers had put on them in Canada and the northern United States. The mystery was solved! The monarchs' winter home is well suited to their needs. Throughout the winter the temperature stays near freezing. It is not cold enough to kill the visiting insects, but it is chilly enough to keep them from moving about. The butterflies survive on the stored fat from their summer foods.

In spring the butterflies awaken and fly north again. Tagged butterflies, which were marked in Mexico, have been found in the United States.