He set off at once for the island, but by the time he got there the cat had killed them all.Twelve stuffed museum species of the Stephens Island flightless wren are all that now exist.At least we have those. All too often, it turns out, we are not much better at looking after species after they have gone than we were before they went.Take the case of the lovely Carolina parakeet.Emerald green, with a golden head, it was arguably the most striking and beautiful bird ever to live in North Americaparrots don't usually venture so far north, as you may have noticed―and at its peak it existed in vast numbers, exceeded only by the passenger pigeon.But the Carolina parakeet was also considered a pest by farmers and easily huntedbecause it flocked tightly and had a peculiar habit of flying up at the sound of gunfire (as you would expect),but then returning almost at once to check on fallen comrades.In his classic American Omithology, written in the early nineteenth century,Charles Willson Peale describes an occasion in which he repeatedly empties a shotgun into a tree in which they roost:At each successive discharge, though showers of them fell, yet the affection of the survivors seemed rather to increase;for, after a few circuits around the place, they again alighted near me,looking down on their slaughtered companions with such manifest symptoms of sympathy and concern, as entirely disarmed me.By the second decade of the twentieth century, the birds had been so relentlessly hunted that only a few remained alive in captivity.
馆长立即动身去到那个小岛，但是等他到达那里的时候，小猫已经将所有的鸟杀死了。斯蒂芬岛上不会飞的鹪鹩现在只剩下博物馆里那12个标本。关于鹪鹩，我们至少还有标本。可是，结果证明，物种灭绝以前我们不善照看物种，物种灭绝以后我们的照看能力也往往强不了多少；以可爱的卡罗来纳鹦鹉为例，那种身体呈翠绿色，头部是金黄色的小鸟，一度曾被认为是北美洲最注目、最好看的鸟类正如你会注意到的鹦鹉通常不会冒险去遥远的北方，在其鼎盛时期，它们的数量投大，只有旅鸽的数量比它们多。但是这种鸟儿曾被农场主视为害鸟，而它们又极易受到伤害，因为它们总是成群而飞，并且还有一种很独特，习惯‘一听到枪声，它们会一哄而起（正如你会想到的那样），可是它们几乎马上又会重新飞回来，察看它们应声而落的同伴。查尔斯.威尔逊.皮尔在他创作于19世纪初期的杰作《美国的鸟类》一书中，曾经描写了这样一个情景：有一次，他朝一棵鹦鹉栖息的树木接连开了几枪：每开一枪，虽然它们纷纷落地，然而幸存者的爱心似乎反而增长。因为，它们沿着那个地方飞了几圈之后，又重新飞落在离我不远的地方，显然以一种同情和关切的目光向下看着它们被杀的同伴，使我再也下不了手。到了20世纪20年代，这种鸟被滥捕滥杀，只有为数不多的依然存活着被关在笼子里。
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