中英文本

As industrial-scale farms flourish in the European Union, its fields have grown quiet—robbed of the birds that once filled them with song. Since 1980 the number of birds that typically inhabit Europe's farmlands has shrunk by 55 percent. And in the last 17 years alone, French farmland-bird counts dropped by a third -- a "level approaching an ecological catastrophe," according to a recent survey.
随着工业规模的农场在欧盟蓬勃发展，那里的农田变得安静起来，不再有鸟儿在歌唱。自1980年以来，通常栖息在欧洲农田中的鸟类的数量减少了55%。而根据最近的一次调查，仅在过去的17年里，法国农田中的鸟类的数量就减少了三分之一--这是“接近生态灾难的水平”。

Intensified agriculture is driving the losses. Habitats where birds once bred, nested, and wintered now bear crops, and pesticides have killed off birds' prey. In the past 27 years Germany has lost 75 percent of its flying insects by mass. Even avian species that typically adapt to humans have dwindled on farms, suggesting that the land is less able to sustain all kinds of birds.
集约农业是造成这一数字下降的主要原因。鸟类曾经繁殖、筑巢和越冬的栖息地现在都种植了庄稼，而杀虫剂杀死了鸟类的猎物。在过去27年里，德国飞行昆虫的总数已经下降了75%。即使是那些一般来说已经适应人类的鸟类，在农场上也有所减少，这表明该土地不具备养活所有鸟类的能力了。
To curb the losses of farmland birds, researchers contend that agriculture must be remade in nature's image: less dependent on the addition of chemicals, more diverse in its flora, and more hospitable to local fauna.
为了控制农田鸟类数量的减少，研究人员主张农业必须按照自然的形象重塑：减少对化学物质的依赖，植物群更加多样化，对当地的动物更加友好。

重点讲解

1.rob of 失去
Self-limiting beliefs rob us of our freedom.
自我限制观念使我们丧失了自己的自由。

2.kill off 杀光
It is an effective treatment for the bacteria and does kill it off.
这是一种有效的灭菌方法，确实把细菌都杀光了。

3.hospitable to 冲入
One of these super-Earths orbits inside the habitable zone -- the region around a star where conditions could be hospitable to life.
这些超级地球之一在可居住区内的轨道上运行，可居住区是指一个星体周围有利于生命生存的区域。