📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 53
1The equator was crossed. Twenty miles to the west were the Guianas, a French territory, on which we could have found an
2easy refuge; but a stiff breeze was blowing, and the furious waves would not have allowed a single boat to face them.
3Ned Land understood that, no doubt, for he spoke not a word about it. For my part, I made no allusion to his schemes of
4flight, for I would not urge him to make an attempt that must inevitably fail. I made the time pass pleasantly by
5interesting studies. During the days of April 11th and 12th, the Nautilus did not leave the surface of the sea, and the
6net brought in a marvellous haul of zoophytes, fish and reptiles. Some zoophytes had been fished up by the chain of the
7nets; they were for the most part beautiful phyctallines, belonging to the actinidian family, and among other species
8the phyctalis protexta, peculiar to that part of the ocean, with a little cylindrical trunk, ornamented with vertical
9lines, speckled with red dots, crowning a marvellous blossoming of tentacles. As to the molluscs, they consisted of some
10I had already observed--turritellas, olive porphyras, with regular lines intercrossed, with red spots standing out
11plainly against the flesh; odd pteroceras, like petrified scorpions; translucid hyaleas, argonauts, cuttle-fish
12(excellent eating), and certain species of calmars that naturalists of antiquity have classed amongst the flying-fish,
13and that serve principally for bait for cod-fishing. I had now an opportunity of studying several species of fish on
14these shores. Amongst the cartilaginous ones, petromyzons-pricka, a sort of eel, fifteen inches long, with a greenish
15head, violet fins, grey-blue back, brown belly, silvered and sown with bright spots, the pupil of the eye encircled with
16gold--a curious animal, that the current of the Amazon had drawn to the sea, for they inhabit fresh waters--tuberculated
17streaks, with pointed snouts, and a long loose tail, armed with a long jagged sting; little sharks, a yard long, grey
18and whitish skin, and several rows of teeth, bent back, that are generally known by the name of pantouffles;
19vespertilios, a kind of red isosceles triangle, half a yard long, to which pectorals are attached by fleshy
20prolongations that make them look like bats, but that their horny appendage, situated near the nostrils, has given them
21the name of sea-unicorns; lastly, some species of balistae, the curassavian, whose spots were of a brilliant gold
22colour, and the capriscus of clear violet, and with varying shades like a pigeon's throat. I end here this catalogue,
23which is somewhat dry perhaps, but very exact, with a series of bony fish that I observed in passing belonging to the
24apteronotes, and whose snout is white as snow, the body of a beautiful black, marked with a very long loose fleshy
25strip; odontognathes, armed with spikes; sardines nine inches long, glittering with a bright silver light; a species of
26mackerel provided with two anal fins; centronotes of a blackish tint, that are fished for with torches, long fish, two
27yards in length, with fat flesh, white and firm, which, when they arc fresh, taste like eel, and when dry, like smoked
28salmon; labres, half red, covered with scales only at the bottom of the dorsal and anal fins; chrysoptera, on which gold
29and silver blend their brightness with that of the ruby and topaz; golden-tailed spares, the flesh of which is extremely
30delicate, and whose phosphorescent properties betray them in the midst of the waters; orange-coloured spares with long
31tongues; maigres, with gold caudal fins, dark thorn-tails, anableps of Surinam, etc. Notwithstanding this "et cetera," I
32must not omit to mention fish that Conseil will long remember, and with good reason. One of our nets had hauled up a
33sort of very flat ray fish, which, with the tail cut off, formed a perfect disc, and weighed twenty ounces. It was white
34underneath, red above, with large round spots of dark blue encircled with black, very glossy skin, terminating in a
35bilobed fin. Laid out on the platform, it struggled, tried to turn itself by convulsive movements, and made so many
36efforts, that one last turn had nearly sent it into the sea. But Conseil, not wishing to let the fish go, rushed to it,
37and, before I could prevent him, had seized it with both hands. In a moment he was overthrown, his legs in the air, and
38half his body paralysed, crying-- "Oh! master, master! help me!" It was the first time the poor boy had spoken to me so
39familiarly. The Canadian and I took him up, and rubbed his contracted arms till he became sensible. The unfortunate
40Conseil had attacked a cramp-fish of the most dangerous kind, the cumana. This odd animal, in a medium conductor like
41water, strikes fish at several yards' distance, so great is the power of its electric organ, the two principal surfaces
42of which do not measure less than twenty-seven square feet. The next day, April 12th, the Nautilus approached the Dutch
43coast, near the mouth of the Maroni. There several groups of sea-cows herded together; they were manatees, that, like
44the dugong and the stellera, belong to the sirenian order. These beautiful animals, peaceable and inoffensive, from
45eighteen to twenty-one feet in length, weigh at least sixteen hundredweight. I told Ned Land and Conseil that provident
46nature had assigned an important role to these mammalia. Indeed, they, like the seals, are designed to graze on the
47submarine prairies, and thus destroy the accumulation of weed that obstructs the tropical rivers. "And do you know," I
48added, "what has been the result since men have almost entirely annihilated this useful race? That the putrefied weeds
49have poisoned the air, and the poisoned air causes the yellow fever, that desolates these beautiful countries. Enormous
50vegetations are multiplied under the torrid seas, and the evil is irresistibly developed from the mouth of the Rio de la
51Plata to Florida. If we are to believe Toussenel, this plague is nothing to what it would be if the seas were cleaned of
52whales and seals. Then, infested with poulps, medusæ, and cuttle-fish, they would become immense centres of infection,
53since their waves would not possess 'these vast stomachs that God had charged to infest the surface of the seas.'"
🎉 全部完成！共 53 行