一只会唱歌的老鼠

华中师范大学外国语学院 赵凡供稿

编者注：

你听说过老鼠会唱歌吗？你对此可能并不相信，但是我们知道，大自然是神奇的，大自然造物的同时，也为我们带来许许多多意想不到的事物。那么今天就让我们一起走进《探索与发现》来看看这只会唱歌的老鼠吧！

Clarke found a very special mouse in his house.This mouse couldshriek(尖叫)with melody(旋律).It seemed that it was the sound of a bird;meanwhile,it also seemed that the mouse was singing.But the fact was that it was a mouse who could sing.Clarke never heard that before.

一个名叫克拉克的人在自家房子里发现了一只非常特殊的老鼠，这只老鼠能发出有旋律的尖叫声，好像鸟的叫声，又好像在唱歌。但事实上它是一只会唱歌的老鼠，克拉克从未听说过。

As a result,Clarke did something that all the people would do.He caught the mouse with effort.He kept the mouse in the cage because he wanted to get someextra(额外的)money by such a special animal.Then he took the mouse to the market to earn money.Soon the mouse and itsmaster(主人)became very famous.Many people who didn’t believe such a story would come and many people also lost their money because of thebet(打赌)on this.

于是克拉克做了所有人都会做的事情，千辛万苦把老鼠捉住，然后养在笼子里。克拉克想利用这只奇特的小动物赚点外快，就把它带到集市上表演赚钱。很快，老鼠和它的主人一起声名远扬，不相信老鼠会唱歌的人都慕名前来，为此赌输的人也不少。

The famous musician Marta Grimm also came to Clarke’s house and saw this special mouse.In Clarke’s house,he listened to the mouse’s song.Later he made his comment:The mouse’s singing was very pure and it had a very high music talent.

“闻风而动”的还有著名音乐家玛塔·格里姆，他在克拉克的家中看到这只神奇的老鼠并聆听了它的歌声。之后，他评论道：老鼠的歌声非常纯净，音乐造诣很高。

After the musicianconfirmed(肯定),Clarke thought that the mouse he caught was reallyunique(罕见的).It seemed that it was thefairy(精灵)among animals.He thought that it was not proper to take it to the market to earn money,so he sent it to the lab in University of Michigan.He believed that the scientists there could usescientific(科学的)methods to find out the mystery.

得到音乐家的肯定后，克拉克觉得自己抓到的老鼠真的非同一般，有点像动物界里的“精灵”。他觉得把这只老鼠带到集市上赚钱有点不妥，于是他把老鼠送到了密歇根大学的实验室，他相信那里的科学家能用科学手段研究它的神奇之处。

More than one scientist was sure that this mouse could sing.They were surprised that it was the only mouse that had such a talent for music.But no scientist could explain the reasons and no scientific methods could be used toanalyze (分析)itsphysiologicalstructure(生理构造).

不止一个科学家确认这只老鼠会唱歌，他们惊奇地发现这是唯一一只具有如此音乐天赋的老鼠，但是没有科学家知道这是为什么，也没有任何科学手段能分析它的生理构造。

It was a problem that was hard to solve at that time.But it is very simple to explain it with scientific views now.In fact,every animal lives on the earth in its unique way.Their perceptions (感知能力)are very strong and they have their own methods to communicate with each other.Of course,they possess many different kinds of sounds.We shouldn’t ignore theexistence(存在)and beauty of these sounds because of thelimitations (局限)of human beings’hearing.

这在当时可能是个难解之谜，但是用我们现在的科学观点来解释就很简单了。事实上，每个动物都以一种独特的方式存在于地球上，它们有非常敏锐的感知能力，有属于自己的独特交流方式，更有千奇百怪的声音，不能因为人类听觉的能力有限，而忽略这些声音的存在和美感。

Many animalscould send supersonic waves(超声波).But only bats and dolphins use this wave in their lives.The purpose of sending supersonic waves is mainly toprey(捕食)and bats and dolphins aretypical(典型的).The supersonic waves that dolphins send could be back after they hit the fish.After dolphins receive the waves,they could catch their food by directions of the waves.Bat is also using the supersonic waves to find theinsects(昆虫)andbarriers(障碍).

很多动物能发出超声波，但是在生活中利用超声波的目前仅有蝙蝠和一些海豚。这些动物发射超生波的目的多半是用于捕食——蝙蝠和海豚就是典型。海豚发出的超声波打到鱼身上后返回来，海豚收到反射回来的声波之后，再根据声波的方向去捕食。蝙蝠也是通过超声波来发现昆虫和障碍物。