听力文本

Have you ever been to the zoo or the circus? How would you like to live in a zoo where the animals were not in cages? The land in Africa on each side of the Equator is like that. A great many of the animals are dangerous, yet some are not.
A lion is a huge cat. but he is the wildest kind of a wild cat. He is the most terrifying of all wild animals—his roar is enough to “freeze the narrow in your bones.” even if he happens to be behind bars in the zoo. No wonder he is feared by all animals and fears none. Other animals have always to be on the watch against enemies, but the lion can lie down and go to sleep without watching or worrying or caring about enemies.
My father used to say if you wanted to catch a bird alive the thing to do is to put a little salt on his tail. But you can’t catch lions that way and you can’t catch birds that way either. If a hunter wishes to catch a lion alive for the zoo or circus, he must catch him in a trap called a snare, which is a pit dug in theground and covered over with branches and twigs. The lion falls into it and then must be caught with a very strong net. If, however, a hunter wishes to kill the lion. he hides near a water-hole and waits until the lion comes for a drink, or else the hunter kills some harmless animal as you might dig worms for bait to catch fish and places him in the lion’s path. One of the animals used for bait is a zebra—a poor, harmless animal that looks like a little pony with stripes. Nature has given the zebra stripes that look like the shadows of tall grass so that he cannot easily be seen.

参考译文

你去过动物园或马戏团吗？如果有个动物园，动物都不关在笼子里，你愿意住在里面吗？非洲赤道两侧的地带就像这样的动物园。许多动物都是危险的，而有些并不危险。
狮子是大型猫科动物，但它是野兽中最凶猛的。狮子是所有野生动物中最可怕的动物——即使它被关在动物园的笼子里，它的吼声也让你不寒而栗。难怪，所有的动物都怕它，而它却不怕任何动物。别的动物不得不总是提防敌人，而狮子却能够躺下来呼呼大睡，不必提防、担心或在意什么敌人。
我小时候父亲常说，要想活捉一只鸟儿，最好的办法是在它的尾巴上撒一点盐。但是用这种方法，是抓不住狮子的，其实用这种方法也抓不住鸟儿。如果一个猎人想活捉一只狮子卖给动物园或马戏团，他就必须设圈套让它落入陷阱中，就是为捕捉野兽而挖的一个坑穴，上面浮盖着大小不等的树枝，狮子踩在上面就掉到坑里，这时必须用一张结实的网将它套住。然而，如果猎人想猎杀狮子，他就躲在池塘附近，等着狮子来饮水；或者，猎人猎杀某种温顺的动物，把它放在狮子必经之路上做诱饵，就像你挖虫子做钓鱼用的诱饵一样。用作诱饵的动物之一就是斑马——一种可怜、温顺的动物，样子像身上有条纹的小型马。大自然赋予斑马身上的条纹，看上去就像高高的草投下的影子，因此，它们就不容易被发现。