Most people agree that honesty is a good thing. But does Mother Nature agree? Animals can’t talk, but can they lie with their bodies and behavior? Animal experts may not call it lying, but they do agree that many animals behave dishonestly to fool other animals. Dishonesty often helps them survive.

Many kinds of birds are very successful at fooling other animals. A bird called the plover sometimes pretends (假装) to be hurt in order to protect its young. When an enemy gets close to its nest, the plover pretends to have a broken wing. The enemy follows the “hurt” adult, leaving the baby birds safe.

Another kind of bird, the scrub jay, buries (埋) its food so it always has something to eat. Scrub jays also steal food. They watch where others bury their food and steal it. But clever scrub jays seem to know when others are watching them. So they get back later, unbury the food, and bury it again somewhere else.

Chimpanzees can also be sneaky. After a fight, the losing chimpanzee will give its hand to the other. When the winning chimpanzee puts out its hand, too, the chimpanzees are friendly again. But an animal expert once saw a losing chimpanzee take the winner’s hand and start fighting again. When chimpanzees find food, it’s natural for them to cry out. Then other chimpanzees come running. But some clever chimpanzees learn to cry very softly when they find food. That way, other chimpanzees don’t hear them, and they don’t need to share the food.

【推荐1】Birth order—does it matter? Are you different because you are the first, second, or third child in your family—or maybe the last of nine?

A study found that first-borns have an average(平均的) IQ that is three points higher than people who fall into a different place in the birth order, perhaps because first-borns often help younger brothers and sisters, which improves their own skills. In 2007, an international organization of CEOs found that 43% of CEOs are first-borns 33% are middle children, and 23% are last-borns. First-borns are more likely(可能的) to be doctors and astronauts and get higher pay.

If first-borns are more successful, last-borns are generally more agreeable. They are also more likely to be funny, possibly to get attention from all the bigger people at the dinner table. Mark Twain and Stephen Colbert were both the youngest in large families, and Jim Carrey was the youngest of four. According to a 2007 Time magazine article, “The power of Birth Order.” last-borns are more likely to be artists and successful businessmen.

Then there are the middle children: we have not ignored(忽视) them! Many middle children are short of one-on-one time with their parents. They often feel short-changed: the oldest gets more rights, and the youngest is spoiled(宠坏的). Though they may be ignored, middle children are more likely to grow into easygoing adults.

Many factors(因素) make us who we are, but if the research is correct, birth order may be one of the most important factors.

We have known for a long time that flowers of different plants open and close at different time of day. This is so familiar that there seems to be no need to ask the reason for it. Yet no one really understands why flowers open and close like this at particular（特别的）times. The process is not as simple as we might think as recent experiments have shown. In one study, flowers were kept in constant（连续的）darkness. We might expect that the flowers without any information about the time of day did not open as they normally do. In fact, they continued to open at their usual time. This suggests that they have some mysterious way of knowing the time. Their sense of time does not depend on information from the outside world; it is, so to speak, inside them, a kind of “inner clock”.

This discovery may not seem to be very important. However, it was later found that not just plants but also animals including men have this “inner clock” which controls the working of their bodies and influences their activities. Men are also influenced by this mysterious power. Whether we wish it or not, it affects such things in our life as our need for sleep our need for food.

In the past, this did not matter very much because people lived in natural condition. In the modern world, things are different: now there are spacemen, airplane pilots and a lot of people who have to work at night in ordinary life. It would be very useful to know more about the “inner clock”. Such ordinary things as flowers might help us understand more about ourselves.