英语听力：Wild China 美丽中国 -7

 As well as the school, the cave houses eighteen families, together with their livestock¹. These could be the only cave-dwelling cows on earth. With schoolwork over, it’s playtime at last.

 

 

In Southern China, caves aren’t just used for shelter; they can be a source of revenue for the community. People have been visiting this cave for generations. The cave floor is covered in guano, so plentiful² that ten minutes’ work can fill this farmer’s baskets. It’s used as a valuable source of fertilizer. A clue to the source of the guano can be heard above the noise of the river. The sound originates high up in the roof of the cave. The entrance is full of swifts.

 

 

They’re very sociable³ birds. More than 200,000 of them share this cave in southern Guizhou Province, the biggest swift colony in China. These days, Chinese house swifts mostly nest in the roofs of  buildings. But rock crevasses⁴ like these were their original home, long before  houses were invented.

 

 

 

Though the swifts depend on the cave for shelter, they never stray further than the limits of daylight, as their eyes can’t see in dark. However, deep inside the cavern⁵, other creatures are better equipped for subterranean⁶ life. A colony of bats is just waking up, using ultrasonic⁷ squeaks⁸ to orientate⁹ themselves in the darkness. Night is the time to go hunting.

 

 

 

Rickett's mouse-eared bat is the only bat in Asia which specializes in catching¹⁰ fishes, tracking them down from the sound reflection of ripples¹¹ onto water surface. This extraordinary behavior was only discovered in the last couple of years and has never been filmed before.

1 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。

2 plentiful   

adj.富裕的，丰富的

参考例句：

• Their family has a plentiful harvest this year.他们家今年又丰收了。
• Rainfall is plentiful in the area.这个地区雨量充足。

3 sociable   

adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的

参考例句：

• Roger is a very sociable person.罗杰是个非常好交际的人。
• Some children have more sociable personalities than others.有些孩子比其他孩子更善于交际。

4 crevasses   

n.破口，崩溃处，裂缝( crevasse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Splays are commonly formed by currents from crevasses in levees. 嗽叭形堆积通常由堤防决口的洪流所形成。 来自辞典例句
• The upper surface of glacier is riven by crevasses. 冰川的上表面已裂成冰隙。 来自辞典例句

5 cavern   

n.洞穴，大山洞

参考例句：

• The cavern walls echoed his cries.大山洞的四壁回响着他的喊声。
• It suddenly began to shower,and we took refuge in the cavern.天突然下起雨来，我们在一个山洞里避雨。

6 subterranean   

adj.地下的，地表下的

参考例句：

• London has 9 miles of such subterranean passages.伦敦像这样的地下通道有9英里长。
• We wandered through subterranean passages.我们漫游地下通道。

7 ultrasonic   

adj.超声的；n.超声波

参考例句：

• It was very necessary for people to take type-B ultrasonic inspection regularly.定期进行B超检查是十分必要的。
• Sounds are classified into two kinds: sonic and ultrasonic.声波分为两类，即普通声波与超声波。

8 squeaks   

n.短促的尖叫声，吱吱声( squeak的名词复数 )v.短促地尖叫( squeak的第三人称单数 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者

参考例句：

• The upper-middle-classes communicate with each other in inaudible squeaks, like bats. 那些上中层社会的人交谈起来象是蚊子在哼哼，你根本听不见。 来自辞典例句
• She always squeaks out her ideas when she is excited. 她一激动总是尖声说出自己的想法。 来自互联网

9 orientate   

v.给…定位；使适应

参考例句：

• The explorer climbed a tree in order to orientate himself.那位勘探者为了确定他所在的地点爬到了一颗树上。
• The mountaineers found it difficult to orientate themselves in the fog.登山的人在浓雾中难以确定自己的方位。

10 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。

11 ripples   

逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The moon danced on the ripples. 月亮在涟漪上舞动。
• The sea leaves ripples on the sand. 海水在沙滩上留下了波痕。