Lesson 2

Spare that spider

Why, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends?
你可能会想，为什么蜘蛛应该成为我们的朋友呢？
Because they destroy so many insects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the human race.
因为他们摧毁了如此多的昆虫，而昆虫中包括人类的一些最大敌人。
Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world; they would devour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds, if it were not for the protection we get from insect-eating animals.
如果不是因为我们从食虫动物那里获得的保护，昆虫将会使我们无法在这个世界上生存；它们会吞噬我们所有的庄稼，并杀死我们的牲畜和兽群。
We owe a lot to the birds and beasts who eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders.
我们亏欠吃昆虫的鸟类和野兽很多，但它们加在一起杀死的昆虫数量，仅占蜘蛛所摧毁数量的一小部分。
Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters, spiders never do the least harm to us or our belongings.
此外，与其他一些食虫动物不同，蜘蛛从不给我们的生活或财物造成丝毫伤害。
Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even nearly related to them.
蜘蛛并不是昆虫，正如许多人所认为的那样，甚至与它们毫无亲缘关系。
One can tell the difference almost at a glance, for a spider always has eight legs and an insect never more than six.
一个人几乎一眼就能看出其中的区别，因为蜘蛛总是有八条腿，而昆虫从不超过六条。
How many spiders are engaged in this work on our behalf?
有多少只蜘蛛代表我们从事这项工作？
One authority on spiders made a census of the spiders in a grass field in the south of England, and he estimated that there were more than 2,250,000 in one acre; that is something like 6,000,000 spiders of different kinds on a football pitch.
一位蜘蛛权威对英格兰南部一片草地上的蜘蛛进行了普查，他估计在一英亩内有超过2,250,000只；也就是说在足球场上有大约6,000,000只不同种类的蜘蛛。
Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects.
蜘蛛至少半年都在忙于捕杀昆虫。
It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill, but they are hungry creatures, not content with only three meals a day.
要做出关于他们杀死了多少的最狂野猜测是不可能的，但他们是饥饿的生物，对每天仅有三餐并不满足。
It has been estimated that the weight of all the insects destroyed by spiders in Britain in one year would be greater than the total weight of all the human beings in the country.
据估计，一年内英国蜘蛛消灭的所有昆虫的重量，将会比这个国家所有人类的总重量还要大。