Dachi was the name of my pet cockatiel. His name comes from the second half of the Japanese word tomodachi,     1    means friend.

I taught Dachi to whistle two songs, “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” and “Happy Birthday to You”. Though his whole range of skills was small, his     2     (confident) never lagged (滞后), and he would frequently wish me a happy birthday when it wasn’t — which could be     3     (embarrass).

When Dachi had been with us for three or four years, I think I may have become a bit too confident with him. One day, I didn’t realize that he was still sitting on my shoulder     4     until the door behind me shut loudly. He     5     (fly) away.

After I placed     6    an advertisement in the local paper, I received a phone call from a woman. I was so relieved to hear this news that I     7     (immediate) drove to her house. When I arrived, she asked me to see whether the bird was     8    (my).

I had a better idea     9     (identify) Dachi and began to whistle the “Happy Birthday” song. The lady stopped me, saying, “He is yours alright — he’s been whistling that all week.”

So Dachi came home in the car     10     (sit) on my shoulder, whistling.

Preserving more habitats for China’s giant pandas is providing a giant payoff.    1    (save) the giant panda from dying out isn’t just good for the panda, but it’s also good for economy, a few analysis by    2    international team of scientists shows.

The results,    3    (publish) in the magazine Current Biology, stress the economic benefits that go hand in hand with environmental protection. Giant pandas are one of the    4    (rare) species around the world. But pandas fell on hard times in recent decades, thanks largely    5    human encroachment (侵入). In 1980 alone, many habitats were destroyed artificially, and in 1990, their habitats covered only 12,340 square kilometers,    6    is a major threat to the pandas in large part because bamboo, their main food source, is so low in nutrients that they must wander a lot of land in order to find and eat enough of it.

Because of this, Chinese officials began making significant efforts to save the panda from    7    (extinct), establishing more reserves and increasing the reserve area three times. Panda numbers    8    (gradual) began to recover, hitting 1,596 in 2000 and 1,864 in 2010.

“    9    is clear that society’s investment (投资)    10    (start) to pay off so far in terms of panda population recovery,” the study authors wrote.