1 . As Gwen Erickson approached 97, she began raising one of America’s most popular, yet endangered butterflies—the monarch butterfly (帝王蝶). She managed to _________ 27 butterflies last year and this year the _________ has gone up to 61.

The whole process is a little _________, beginning with collecting eggs from the milkweed leaves that grow in her backyard. Four days after Erickson placed the eggs in jars on her living room table, the caterpillar (毛毛虫) appeared, and then, within several weeks, formed a chrysalis (蛹). Two weeks later the beautiful butterflies _________. Erickson then released the butterflies into the wild, but a couple seemed a little _________ to leave their loving home and _________ the senior by flying around the house.

Erickson remembered her first attempt to raise _________ and said she hoped it could enable her grandchildren to _________ an interest in these beautiful insects. However, it’s she who has found the _________ in raising butterflies in the end.

Erickson doesn’t like to talk about herself and what she does, but she does so this time as she wants to ____________ others to care for this endangered species. Happily, a friend and her son have joined her in her new-found ____________. Hopefully, we will see a(n) ____________ in those decreasing numbers.

This new ____________ is a fine example of people caring for the smaller things in life. It ____________ us that it’s never too late to be ____________ in life.

The pileated woodpecker (红冠黑啄木鸟) is one of the     1     (large) woodpecker species in North America and its look is unmistakable-a large black bird with white on each side of its neck and a red crest on its head. When it flies, white flashes are visible under its     2     (wing).

The sound of the pileated woodpeckers’ hammering (捶打声)     3     (carry) a long distance   through the woods     4     they live. They hammer to attract mates and establish the boundaries of their territory to warn other males away.

They use their beaks to peck and dig under bark to find carpenter ants and other insects and will often dig large holes in trees     5     (find) their meals. Some holes are so big that they     6     (weak) small and young trees. The birds also strip (剥去) pieces of bark from trees to look for food. Generally, however, pileated woodpeckers help keep a forest healthy     7     eating wood-boring insects.

A nesting pair of pileated woodpeckers     8     (usual) makes a nesting hole in a large and older tree. During the day, both parents take turns incubating (孵化) or     9     (sit) on the eggs to keep them warm. At night, only the male incubates the eggs. The pileated woodpeckers generally lay four eggs at     10     time, which take about two weeks to hatch.

6 . New Zealand’s government released its first-ever climate adaptation plan, which includes the possibility of moving some communities to higher ground. But the six-year plan, which runs nearly 200 pages, is short of some important details, including how much the changes will cost and who will pay.

Climate Change Minister James Shaw said that about 70,000 coastal homes in New Zealand were at risk from rising seas, and many more inland homes were at risk from flooding rivers. He said New Zealand had been slow to adapt to climate change, which would end up costing more money over time. “I am frustrated that for the last three decades, successive governments have not paid any attention in any real form to the challenges that we face from the effects of climate change,” Shaw said.

The National Adaptation Plan includes the possible relocation of low-lying homes and assets as rising seas and increased storms make flooding more common. “In some highly exposed areas, the risk from natural hazard and climate impacts may become intolerable,” the report says. The report says that a “managed retreat (撤离)” from such areas will often be considered a last resort, to be used in combination with other adaptations such as installing seawalls and raising houses on stilts.

Shaw said the costs for adaptation would be borne by a combination of homeowners, insurers, banks, local councils and central government. He said the government was taking hardship into account, and would target help to those least able to pay for changes themselves. The plan also aims to make climate-change data more widely accessible, which in some cases could impact insurance rates and property prices.

Luke Harrington, a senior lecturer in climate change at the University of Waikato, said in a statement the report was a timely reminder that New Zealand needed to deal not only with rising seas, but also with other climate impacts such as more severe droughts and extreme rainfall. “This National Adaptation Plan is a great first step towards dealing with some of these challenges, though paucity remains in some of the details,” he said.

8 . Roads and railways have made it easy for people to travel around the UK, but have had the precisely opposite effect for insects. Alongside housing developments, transport infrastructure (基础设施) has separated insect habitats, leaving many pollinators (传粉昆虫) stuck on decreasing islands of biodiversity.

A new conservation project aims to address that by creating a network of wildflower superhighways across the UK. The B-Lines network aims to join the dots between meadow habitats, enabling pollinators and other wildlife to move freely between them. Ten years in the making, the B-Lines initiative was launched by the insect charity Buglife on Tuesday and has already generated interest from unexpected quarters. “After the launch, some house builders rang up asking how they could include the network into house building, so it could have a really positive effect,” said Buglife’s Paul Hetherington.

Buglife has spent the last decade mapping potential routes for the insect superhighway. Hetherington said the proposed highway could give the UK’s weak insects a boost and a route out of habitats that become too hot due to the climate crisis and it can make a huge difference in easing declines. “The things that have really hammered pollinators are habitat loss, loss of connectivity of habitat, climate change and pesticides—this deals with everything except pesticides,” said Hetherington.

The B-lines network is not just a concept. Pilot sections have already been completed, including the South Wales B-Lines near Cardiff. “Since that was done, there have been recordings of one of our rarest bees in Cardiff town centre, which shows this connectivity can work,” said Hetherington. And in Norwich, Buglife has been working with Network Rail to plant wildflowers along the track. Anyone living along the proposed route can get involved in the project. All they need to do is let their lawns grow, or even just create a small herb garden, which Hetherington likened to creating a “motorway service station for bees”.

9 . A Natural History of the Future

Over the past century, humans have made great technological achievements with which we have found ways to control nature. From river dams (大坝)to huge one-crop fields, we continue to try to change nature for our goals so much that it seems we may be in danger of influencing it seriously.

In A Natural History of the Future, biologist Rob Dunn thinks that nothing could be further from the truth: rather than asking whether nature will let us live, we’d better ask whether we will let nature last. Although we try our best, or worst, to control the biological world, life has its own laws, and no matter what man does, he cannot change them.

Explaining several basic laws of ecology (生态), Dunn shows why life cannot be stopped. We grow one single crop on the field, only to find new life appearing to attack them. We throw away poisonous (有毒的) waste, only to find microbes (微生物) taking it over. And even in the London Tube, we have seen a new type of mosquito appear to take advantage of a place that is clearly not fit to live. Life will not follow our plans. Instead, Dunn shows us the future of living things and the challenges that the next generation may face.

A Natural History of the Future sets a new standard for understanding the different kinds of life and our future as a kind of creature.

Weight: 478g

Size: 223 ×146 ×33mm

Price:£ 25.00

Ways to Buy: They can be got in bookstores and online.