[al:新概念英语（三）] [ar:MP3 同步字幕版（英音）] [ti:Instinct or Cleverness?] [by:更多学习内容，请到chazidian.com搜索“新概念”] [00:01.48]Lesson 54 [00:04.04]Instinct or cleverness? [00:13.23]Was the writer successful in protecting his peach tree? Why not? [00:20.96]We have been brought up to fear insects. [00:24.13]We regard them as unnecessary creatures that do more harm than good. [00:29.16]We continually wage war on them, for they contaminate our food, carry diseases, or devour our crops. [00:36.88]They sting or bite without provocation; [00:40.03]they fly uninvited into our rooms on summer nights, or beat against our lighted windows. [00:46.97]We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths. [00:55.99]Reading about them increases our understanding without dispelling our fears. [01:01.29]Knowing that the industrious ant lives in a highly organized society [01:05.99]does nothing to prevent us from being filled with revulsion when we find hordes of them crawling over a carefully prepared picnic lunch. [01:15.38]No matter how much we like honey, [01:17.65]or how much we have read about the uncanny sense of direction which bees possess, we have a horror of being stung. [01:26.20]Most of our fears are unreasonable, but they are impossible to erase. [01:31.89]At the same time, however, insects are strangely fascinating. [01:36.61]We enjoy reading about them, especially when we find that, like the praying mantis, they lead perfectly horrible lives. [01:45.54]We enjoy staring at them, entranced as they go about their business, unaware (we hope) of our presence. [01:53.50]Who has not stood in awe at the sight of a spider pouncing on a fly, [01:58.29]or a column of ants triumphantly bearing home an enormous dead beetle? [02:04.32]Last summer I spent days in the garden watching thousands of ants crawling up the trunk of my prize peach tree. [02:12.41]The tree has grown against a warm wall on a sheltered side of the house. [02:17.01]I am especially proud of it, [02:19.17]not only because it has survived several severe winters, but because it occasionally produces luscious peaches. [02:27.34]During the summer, I noticed that the leaves of the tree were beginning to wither. [02:32.32]Clusters of tiny insects called aphides were to be found on the underside of the leaves. [02:39.24]They were visited by a large colony of ants which obtained a sort of honey from them. [02:44.92]I immediately embarked on an experiment which [02:47.61]even though it failed to get rid of the ants kept me fascinated for twenty-four hours. [02:53.72]I bound the base of the tree with sticky tape, making it impossible for the ants to reach the aphides. [03:00.40]The tape was so sticky that they did not dare to cross it. [03:04.14]For a long time, I watched them scurrying around the base of the tree in bewilderment. [03:09.82]I even went out at midnight with a torch and noted with satisfaction (and surprise) [03:15.58]that the ants were still swarming around the sticky tape without being able to do anything about it. [03:21.88]I got up early next morning hoping to find that the ants had given up in despair. [03:27.52]Instead, I saw that they had discovered a new route. [03:31.95]They were climbing up the wall of the house and then on to the leaves of the tree. [03:37.42]I realized sadly that I had been completely defeated by their ingenuity. [03:42.85]The ants had been quick to find an answer to my thoroughly unscientific methods!