Now, I’m a scientist and a bit of a skeptic. I don’t read horoscopes, visit clairvoyants, or spend a lot of time worrying about fate. I do, however, have several friends capable of staging elaborate practical jokes. My first reaction was to look for the hidden camera, or listen for the sound of muffled laughter coming from behind a hedgerow. But of course there was nothing, just my breathing, the quiet woods, and the retreating flight noise of the bird. It really did appear that after spending the morning writing about vultures and their feathers, I’d gone for a run and bumped into a bunch of vultures, and that one of them had practically dropped a feather on my head.
上面对应的是中文前言的最后一段:“当然,我是个科学工作者......”
而下面这段就不翼而飞了!刚想夸这本翻译很好(扶额 “You don’t choose what to write—it chooses you.” I first heard that maxim intoned with great significance during an undergraduate creative writing seminar. At the time, it made me glad I had a double major in ecology, where I could balance such notions with a dose of comfortably prosaic tables, graphs, and data sets. Now, the phrase seemed less cliché than command. Ancient Egyptians revered vultures as far-seeing symbols of empire, truth, and justice, never to be denied. Fortunately, these birds had given me a mandate I was glad to fulfill. Decision made: I would write the feather book. With a nod to the trio still perched in their fir tree, I picked up the feather and carried it home. It’s here with me now, the vulture’s benediction, token of an exploration just beginning, and a fascination that will never end.
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