英語(yǔ)聽(tīng)力：自然百科 同胞相殘

On a Minnesota farm 40 miles away, another family is further along. Their two eaglets(小鷹) have already hatched(孵化). The mother feeds her four-day-old daughter. The two-day-old male, hardly able to hold his head up, doesn’t seem to be getting a fair share. Although both parents arededicated, they have a blind spot for one particular peril(危險(xiǎn)) -- one within the family: sibling(兄弟姐妹，手足) rivalry.

It’s not unusual for the older eaglet to turn on(攻擊) the younger and smaller. In nature’s cold calculation: why share your meals when you can eat more alone?Neil(Neil Rettig) has been documenting the story from a stifling(令人窒息的) blind(隱蔽物), just a stone’s throw from the nest.

“The dynamics of this whole syndrome is that the chick that’s beat up becomes weaker and weaker, cowers(畏縮), he is kind of afraid even to stand upright, and the female, who always feeds, the chick is more robust. It’s called the Cain and Abel syndrome. The feedings go on for about, oh, 5 to 8 minutes, sometimes maybe 12 minutes. The bigger chick is getting up to 30 or 40 pieces of food per feeding. The little one would get about 6 to 8 pieces. The last few days we’ve been worried a lot about whether the younger smaller chick is going to survive or not. So we got our fingers crossed(默默祈禱) that little UD (we call him underdog) is gonna be Ok.