[00:01.080]--- lesson 54 Instinct or cleverness?
[00:07.200]--- Listen to the tape then answer the question below.
[00:12.800]--- Was the writer successful in protecting his peach tree? why not?
[00:20.560]We have been brought up to fear insects.
[00:23.920]We regard them as unnecessary creatures that do more harm than good.
[00:28.800]We continually wage war on them, for they contaminate our food, carry diseases, or devour our crops.
[00:36.680]They sting or bite without provocation;
[00:39.640]they fly uninvited into our rooms on summer nights, or beat against our lighted windows.
[00:46.560]We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths.
[00:55.600]Reading about them increases our understanding without dispelling our fears.
[01:00.920]Knowing that the industrious ant lives in a highly organized society does nothing to prevent us from being filled with revulsion
[01:09.800]when we find hordes of them crawling over a carefully prepared picnic lunch.^(.. ..
[01:14.920]No matter how much we like honey, or how much we have read about the uncanny sense of direction which bees possess,
[01:23.040]we have a horror of being stung.
[01:25.800]Most of our fears are unreasonable, but they are impossible to erase.
[01:31.480]At the same time, however, insects are strangely fascinating.
[01:36.240]We enjoy reading about them, especially when we find that, like the praying mantis, they lead perfectly horrible lives.
[01:45.200]We enjoy staring at them, entranced as they go about their business, unaware (we hope) of our presence.
[01:53.120]Who has not stood in awe at the sight of a spider pouncing on a fly, or a column of ants triumphantly bearing home an enormous dead beetle?
[02:03.880]Last summer I spent days in the garden watching thousands of ants crawling up the trunk of my prize peach tree.
[02:12.080]The tree has grown against a warm wall on a sheltered side of the house.
[02:16.680]I am especially proud of it, not only because it has survived several severe winters, but because it occasionally produces luscious peaches.
[02:26.960]During the summer, I noticed that the leaves of the tree were beginning to wither.
[02:32.080]Clusters of tiny insects called aphids were to be found on the underside of the leaves.
[02:38.840]They were visited by a large colony of ants which obtained a sort of honey from them.
[02:44.560]I immediately embarked on an experiment which, even though it failed to get rid of the ants, kept me fascinated for twenty-four hours.
[02:53.280]I bound the base of the tree with sticky tape, making it impossible for the ants to reach the aphids.
[03:00.000]The tape was so sticky that they did not dare to cross it.
[03:03.800]For a long time. I watched them scurrying around the base of the tree in bewilderment.
[03:09.440]I even went out at midnight with a torch and noted with satisfaction (and surprise) that the ants were still swarming around the sticky tape without being able to do anything about it.
[03:21.480]I got up early next morning hoping to find that the ants had given up in despair.
[03:27.200]Instead, I saw that they had discovered a new route.
[03:31.640]They were climbing up the wall of the house and then on to the leaves of the tree.
[03:37.040]I realized sadly that I had been completely defeated by their ingenuity.
[03:42.640]The ants had been quick to find an answer to my thoroughly unscientific methods!