Sen Stink bug (eurygaster integriceps)

This insect which attacks cereals – wheat, rye, and barley – ranks among the most destructive pests. It causes great damage to immature grain kernels by piercing them with its proboscis, sucking the juice and introducing a poisonous fluid.

As a result, the grain shrivels and becomes lightweight, and a low yield of poor quality is obtained. Flour made from this grain tastes bitter and is low nutrition.

When the ears of grain are being formed, the females lay their eggs in tiny clusters on the lower surface of the leaves. The young nymphs which hatch out look very much like their parents, but are considerably smaller and have no wings. After shedding their skins several times they develop into mature Sen Stink Bug. They omit the pupal stage.

If the nymph sucks the juice from grain at the milky stage, it will become an adult insect and lay eggs the next year. If, for some reason, its development is retarded and the nymph feeds on hardened grain, no reproduction is registered. Consequently, one of the methods of control is to sow early-ripening varieties of grain. Early harvesting (at the beginning of the wax stage) is another.

Aircraft of course are playing an increasing part in fighting the pest on the extensive areas occupied by collective and state farms. They either spread DDT or spray chemicals that injure the cuticle of the Sen Stink Bug. This method of dealing with harmful insects is the cheapest.

 

Vocabulary:

1. grain kernel (ear) – колос зерновых культур

2. to pierce – протыкать

3. proboscis – хоботок

4. to suck – сосать

5. poisonous fluid – ядовитая жидкость

6. to shrivel – сморщиваться, съеживаться

7. nutrition – питательность

8. cluster – гроздь

9. surface – поверхность

10. mature (adult) – взрослый, зрелый

Task:

Write out the adjectives in the degrees of comparison.

Text 20

Care of poultry

Housing. Domestic fowls are kept on farms in special poultry houses. These are built in elevated, dry places, usually on the outskirts of a village, some little distance from human homes.

Some poultry houses have special grassy runs and the birds are allowed to go on “free range”.

The houses are built of wood, bricks, slag, or a mixture of clay and reeds (saman), and have floors and ceilings adapted for winter. If birds are not caged there is no need for heating. If birds are kept in cages, and are thereby forced to live without exercise, the house must be heated.

All the houses have windows and are well lit because daylight is most important for the birds’ health. In winter electric lights are switched on in the morning and evening to prolong the hours of light. This causes the birds to lay more eggs.

Another important condition is the presence of fresh air, which is achieved through ventilation.

To prevent disease (infectious microbes can be brought in on the poultry-farmers’ shoes) special grids covered with thick felt or saw-dust saturated with disinfectant solution are placed at the entrances.

Equipment. On some farms fowls live uncaged on the floors of sheds. At others they are kept in cages. Different equipment is required for each method.

When the birds are kept in separate cages, the cages are arranged in rows and tiers, and the shed in which they are kept is called a battery-laying house. This arrangement allows for greater mechanisation in caring for the birds.

Fresh water flows slowly along a small open trough extended along the rows of cages. This saves the poultry farmers much work and ensures a clean water supply for the birds. Special appliances deliver the food to the troughs mounted in front of each cage. Mechanised scrapers remove the droppings.

The eggs, laid on the wire-mesh floor which is slightly sloped, roll towards the front where they are stopped by a special barrier. Collection is quick and simple.

To prevent disease and make them lay more eggs the fowls are regularly exposed to radiation from quartz lamps.

The feed troughs and drinking vessels for birds on free range are placed on the floor or on special stands so made that the birds cannot get inside them. Receptacles that supply food and water automatically and just need regular filling are, of course, the most convenient.

In some cases fowls are allowed to roost on perches, which are installed not higher than 70-90 cm. Above the floor (most domestic fowls are poor fliers), and at the same time level—so that they do not become soiled by droppings.

Nests are usually boxes partly filled with straw. On pedigree farms poultrymen use trap-nests for control. When a hen enters the nest to lay an egg the door closes behind her and holds her until she is released. This makes it possible to record the number of eggs laid by each hen and choose the eggs of the better layers for incubation.

Shallow boxes filled with sand or cinders are placed on the floors of laying houses. The hens sit in them and “dust” themselves to become free of vermin.

The floors in the poultry houses are commonly covered with straw, peat or sawdust. These materials absorb the moisture in the droppings. Some farmers add fresh material as necessary throughout a whole year, clearing it all out at the end of the year and adding a completely new layer for another 12 months (the so-called multilayer method).

Vocabulary:

1. care of poultry (fowls) – разведение птицы

2. free range – свободный выгул

3. cage – клетка, загон

4. solution – раствор

5. shed – сарай

6. row – ряд

7. trough – поилка

8. battery-laying house – птицеферма

9. to supply – снабжать, поставлять

10. mechanised scraper – автоматические уборщики (транспортеры)

11. droppings – помёт

12. disease – болезнь

13. receptacle – кормушка

14. perch – насест

14. to expose – подвергать, выставлять

15. nest – гнездо

16. pedigree farm – племенное хозяйство

17. vermin – паразит

18. straw – солома

19. peat – торф

20. saw-dust – опилки

21. moisture – влага

Tasks:

1. Find the suffixes in the underlined terms.

2. Write out the sentences with the Passive Voice.

 

Text 21

Feeding

Like their wild ancestors, domestic fowls need different components in their diet. Grain and offals (bran, middlings) combined, in smaller quantities, with animal matter provide the best diet. On smaller farms, fowls that are allowed to run free find much of their food themselves: insects, earthworms, etc. On larger farms they are fed partly on dried ground waste meat (meat meal) or fish (fish meal) from slaughter-house, and sometimes earthworms, molluscs, and May-beetles. Peas and other legumes, which are rich in protein, can be used to replace part of the animal matter.

Vitamins are supplied in juicy food: carrots and beet, as well as green food: grass, sprouted barley and oats, as well as special vitaminised preparations. In winter they get V-flour made of dried grass.

The shell of an egg is largely made up of minerals, which are fed to the bird in the form of chalk, broken shells of molluscs, and bone meal. The diet must also include some salt.

Mineral mater and grit must be placed in separated boxes. Fowls have no teeth with which to break up food. Instead they have a gizzard-a strong muscular bag. The grit they swallow is storied in the gizzard, where it helps to grind up the food as it passes slowly through.

Specialists have evolved special diets for fowls of different ages, weights and egg-laying capacities. The fowl are fed two or three times daily.

Special equipment is used to prepare the food – vegetable root washers, root cutters, steamers, mixers.

Vocabulary:

1. diet – питание

2. quantity –количество

3. to feed – кормить

4. legume – боб; растение семейства бобовых

5. V-flour – витаминизированная мука

6. shell – скорлупа

7. bone meal – костная мука

8. gizzard – второй желудок (у птиц); глотка, горло

9. to grind up – измельчать, перемалывать

10. capacity – способность

Tasks:

1. Translate into Russian the sentence “It sticks in my gizzard”

2. Tell some words about domestic fowls΄ diet.

 

Text 22

Time-table and Personnel

Poultry farms are staffed with specially-trained poultrymen, who feed the fowls, collect the eggs, and keep the house clean. If the farm is not mechanised, a larger staff is needed. On highly-mechanised farms (mechanised water and food supply, and the clearing away of mature) one person can take care of about 10, 000 fowls. Naturally, this lowers the cost of eggs and poultry.

Each farm keeps to a strict daily time-table in carrying out the work feeding, airing the houses, cleaning the troughs, etc.

Specific Requirements. Poultry breeding must be based on the biological peculiarities and requirements of each separate type.

Since the ancestors of the domestic fowl came from India, a country with a warm climate, poultry sheds must always be warm, well-lit and airy. Surrounding the house there must be a run protected from rain and excessively hot sun.

Since the fowls are almost unable to fly, the perches must not be too high, and the feeding troughs must stand on the floor.

Taking into consideration the food requirements (inherited from their wild ancestors), fowls must be fed not only on a vegetarian diet but also on animal and mineral matter.

Only if the foregoing provisions are carefully observed will fowls have fine flesh and lay many eggs.

 

 

Vocabulary:

1. time-table – расписание

2. to staff – обеспечивать персоналом

3. to carry out – выполнять

4. to air – проветривать

5. requirement – требование

6. peculiarity – особенность

7. ancestor – предок

8. matter – вещество

9. foregoing – предшествующий

10. flesh – плоть, мясо

Tasks:

1. Find the sentences with the modal verb and translate them.

2. Write out the nouns in the plural form from the third passage.

 

Text 23

Fowl

Wild Fowl. The domestic fowls of today were evolved from the wild Red Jungle Fowls which are still found in the forest of India, China and Burma, and resemble the familiar chickens both in outward appearance and behaviour. They are heavy, thick-set birds with powerful legs carrying several blunt claws. The head is adorned with a comb and wattles. The cocks are bigger than the hens and have more beautiful plumage.

The Red Jungle Fowl, like its domesticated relatives, finds its food by scratching in the earth. Its diet consists of seeds and insects. Its powers of flight are poor and it uses its short, rounded wings only to leap onto a tree branch to escape from beasts of prey, or when roosting at night.

In the wild state fowls reproduce by laying a clutch of eggs in a nest in some hidden place on the ground. The newly-hatched chicks are fairly independent and are able to pick up food.

Evolution. The wild ancestors of the modern fowl are believed to have been domesticated in India somewhere about 5, 000 years ago, after which they were gradually introduced to all countries throughout the world.

During this time, various types have been developed. Domestic hens, although they have much in common with the Red Jungle Fowl, lay more eggs are much heavier (which is more important). The Red Jungle Fowlweighs 600-800 gr. While the domestic breeds weigh from 2 to 5 kg. The Red Jungle Fowl lays about 12-20 a year; the domestic hen about 300, i.e., 15 times as many. Minor changes concern colour, the shape of the comb, etc.

The greater size and capacity to lay more eggs are the result of good food and proper care, and generations of selective breeding. These qualities were often inherited.

Breeds. Gradually various types of fowls have been evolved. The most popular in Russia is the Russian White, which lays about 200 eggs a year and sometimes even up to 320. The breed was evolved at collective and state farms from Leghorn, but is heavier and better adapted to our climate.

Other breeds popular in Russia include the May first, white birds with a dark tail; Rhode Island Reds (chestnut), and the Yurlov Singers, the cocks of which have powerful vocal cords. The Yurlov breed was evolved in pre-Revolutionary times by peasants in the Oryol Region. The birds are heavy, lay up to 200 eggs a year, and stand up well to cold weather.

Vocabulary:

1. behaviour – поведение

2. blunt claw – тупой коготь

3. wattle – сережка (у птиц)

4. plumage – оперение птиц

5. to roost – усаживаться на насест, устраиваться на ночлег

6. reproduce – воспроизводить

7. throughout the world – по всему миру

8. to weigh – весить

9. selective breeding – селекционное разведение

10. to evolve – эволюционировать, развиваться, выводиться

 

Questions:

1. What do domestic fowls have in common with the Red Jungle Fowl?

2. What difference is there between them?

3. What conditions brought about the changes in the wild fowl in the process of domestication?

4. Which fowls in Russia have the greatest commercial importance?

Text 24

Veterinary science

Veterinary science, also called veterinary medicine means the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the diseases of domestic animals and the management of other animal disorders. The field also deals with those diseases that are intercommunicable between animals and humans.

Persons serving as doctors to animals have existed since the earliest recorded times, and veterinary practice was already established as a specialty as early as 2000 BC in Babylonia and Egypt. The ancient Greeks had a class of physicians who were literally called “horse-doctors”, and the Latin term for the specialty, veterinarius (“pertaining to beasts of burden”) came to denote the field in general in modern times.

After a period of virtual nonexistence during the Dark and Middle Ages, veterinary science revived in the mid – 18th century, when the first veterinary schools in Europe were established. With the field in the hands of educated men, veterinary science rapidly regained its lost status, and its subsequent development largely parallels that of modern medicine.

The preventive and control measures used in veterinary science are of vital economic importance to the livestock industry. Such common animal diseases as mastitis, brucellosis, swine fever, erysipelas, anthrax, and leptospirosis can cause major losses among stock animals and must be controlled or prevented by veterinarian. Vaccination and immunization are important tools against infectious diseases such as anthrax, bovine tuberculosis, brucellosis, canine distemper, and rabies. Sanitation measures and the rigid segregation, or quarantine, of sick animals are other basic control measures to combat their spread. Veterinarians also treat parasitical infections, conditions resulting in impaired fertility (in livestock), and nutritional disorders, and they often set broken limbs and neuter domestic pets.

Vocabulary:

1. a prevention – предотвращение

2. diagnosis and treatment of the diseases – диагностика и лечение болезней

3. a disorder – расстройство

4. a specialty – 1. особенность 2. специальность

5. Babylonia – Вавилон

6. Egypt – Египет

7. to pertain – иметь отношение

8. to be established – быть созданным, учрежденным

9. subsequent development – последующее развитие

10.vital – жизненный; жизненно важный

11. erysipelas – рожа, рожистое воспаление

12. anthrax – сибирская язва

13. leptospirosis – лептоспироз

14. losses – потери

15. bovine tuberculosis – бычий туберкулез

16. canine [΄ keı naı n] distemper – собачья чума

17. rabies – бешенство

18. a segregation – отделение, изоляция; сегрегация

19. to combat – сражаться, бороться

20. impaired fertility – ослабленная плодовитость

21. broken limbs – сломанные конечности

Task:

Write out the underlined words with the suffixes and say what part of speech they come from.

Text 25

The world around us

There are six billion people in the world and they live in different corners of it. They live on the snow and ice of the poles and in the tropical jungles on the equator. They live in the forests and in the deserts, on the river banks and by the sea. Some decades ago they even left the Earth and visited the Moon.

The human species is the most numerous and the most powerful of all the animals on earth. How did it happen? In many ways, animals can do things better than people. Dogs can smell and hear better than human beings. Cats can see in the dark. Birds can fly. But no other animal builds cathe­drals, plays football, tells jokes, gets married, writes books, elects presidents, or goes to the Moon.

There is one thing above all that makes people and ani­mals different. People love to talk. We are the great com­municators! And we can communicate so many things in so many ways — with our faces, our hands, our bodies, and our voices. Most important of all, we can record what we say and think in writing, so that we can communicate through time. We have a sense of past and future, not just present.

We are the only species that can change the world, and we are the only species that can choose either to look after our world or to destroy it.

Vocabulary:

1. the pole – полюс

2. to leave (left; left) smth. v — уехать из, покинуть что-л.

3. the equator [ik΄ weitə ] – экватор

4. the desert – пустыня

5. decade – 10 лет

6. the human species – человеческий род

7. a species, species pl – 1) род, порода; 2) вид, разновидность

8. human being – человек

9. multiple – многочисленный

10. animals can do many things better than people - животные могут делать многое лучше людей

11. in many ways — по разному

12. to smell – 1) нюхать, обонять; 2) пахнуть

(Dogs can smell better than people. This box smells very strange.)

13. to get married – пожениться

14. to select smb — выбирать кого-л.

15. above all — прежде всего; самое главное

16. to communicate – 1) общаться; 2) передавать (информацию)

17. communication – общение

18. communicator– передающий информацию

19. to record – записывать

20. a sense of (time) - чувство (времени)

21. to look after – присматривать за, заботиться о ком-л.

22. to destroy – разрушать

 

Tasks:

1. Make up lists of what people and animals can and can't do.

Example A. People can tell jokes... They can't fly.

Example B. Animals can... They can't...

2. Say what other things people and animals can do.

3. Enumerate the ways people can communicate.

4. Explain why writing is a special kind of communication.

5.* Say in what ways we can look after the world, and in what ways we can destroy it.

Text 26

The natural world

There are many different kinds of animals in the world. About 95% of them invertebrate, that is to say they do not have internal skeletons with backbones. Many invertebrates have shells, others have external skeletons. So these invertebrates are soft inside and hard outside. Invertebrates include insects, which make 80 per cent of all the animals in the world.

We know about one million different kinds of insects, and scientists think there may be the same number still waiting to be discovered.

About 5 per cent of the world’s animals are vertebrates. Vertebrates are soft outside and hard inside. They have internal skeletons with backbones. The main groups of vertebrates are fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.

Fish, which live in water, are the largest group. Examples of two kinds of fish are trout and sharks. But not all vertebrates that live in water are fish. Whales, for instance, are mammals, although they look very like fish.

Amphibians live between land and water. A frog is a typical amphibian.

Reptiles, foe example snake, are cold-blooded animals, which live on land. For a hundred and sixty million years large reptiles, dinosaurs, were the most animals on the earth.

Birds are like reptiles in many ways but they are warm-blooded. They are the only vertebrates, which can fly, except for bats. Although they look like birds, bats are actually mammals. There are big differences between different kinds of birds. Compare an eagle with a duck, for example.

Mammals are warm-blooded like birds, but unlike birds, mammals do not lay eggs; they grow their babies inside them, and when babies are born, their mothers feed them on milk.

Vocabulary:

1. vertebrate – позвоночное

2. invertebrate – беспозвоночное

3. internal – внутренний

4. external – внешний

5. backbone – позвоночник

6. skeleton – скелет

7. shell – раковина

8. soft – мягкий

9. hard – твердый

10. inside – внутри

11. outside — снаружи

12. insect — членистоногое

13. amphibian — амфибия; земноводное

14. mammal — млекопитающее

15. reptile [reptail] — рептилия; пресмыкающееся

16. trout — форель

17. shark — акула

18. whale — кит

19. dinosaur ['dainə so: ] — динозавр

20. cold-blooded — холоднокровный

21. warm-blooded — теплокровный

22. bat — летучая мышь

23. eagle — орел

24. to lay eggs — откладывать яйца

25. to grow babies — растить детенышей

26. to feed on milk — кормить молоком

 

· Read text 27 and complete the chart.

 

…………: ___________________________

Text 27

Mammals

A mammal is an endothermic, " warm-blooded", animal whose body is " heated from inside" and stays much the same temperature, no matter how hot or cold the surroundings.

When a mammal's body breaks down food and oxygen in order to build new tissue and to supply energy, heat is produced. Hair, which grows out of the mammal's skin, and fat, which lies under it, help insulate the mammal's body against heat loss.

If the mammal becomes too hot, it cools itself by sleeking down its hair, sweating, panting or moving to a cool place. If the mammal becomes too cold, goosebumps pull its hair erect, it shivers to make extra body heat, and moves to a warmer place.

Monotremes have a normal body temperature of 30°C. Marsupials average 35°C, while human body temperature is normally 37°C.

Desert mammals often have big ears and rangy bodies. The large skin area loses heat fast.

Mammals which live in cold places have compact bodies and thick fur. Insulating fat beneath their skins can be used bу the body as a food source in very cold weather.

Some animals, like small bats and echidnas, survive cold by going into a short-term resting state called torpor, or a longer " sleep" called hibernation.

 

Vocabulary:

1. endothermic – эндотермический, теплопоглощающий

2. heat — тепло

3. to heat — согревать

4. heat loss — потеря тепла; замерзание

5. to cool — охлаждать

6. to break down food — расщеплять пищу

7. oxygen — кислород

8. tissue — ткань

9. to supply energy — поставлять энергию

10. skin — кожа; шкура

11. to insulate — изолировать; защищать

12. insulating — защитный; защищающий

13. to sleek — лизать

14. to sweat [swet] — потеть

15. to pant — тяжело дышать; задыхаться

16. goosebumps — «гусиная» кожа

17. to pull smth erect — поднимать вверх

18. to shiver — дрожать

19. monotremes — яйцекладущие, однопроходные

20. marsupials — сумчатые

21. rangy — поджарый; длинноногий

22. source — источник

23. to survive [sə 'vaiv] — пережить (что-л.)

24. short-term — короткий, недолгий; краткосрочный

25. echidna [e'kidnə ] — ехидна

26. resting state — состояние покоя

27.torpor — оцепенение; спячка

28.hibernation — зимняя спячка

 

Questions:

1. Why is a mammal an endothermic animal?

2. How is heat produced in the mammal's body?

3. What does the mammal do if it's too hot or too cold?

4. Is the body temperature of monotremes different from that of marsupials?

5. Why do desert animals often have rangy bodies?

6. What kind of bodies do mammals living in cold places have?

7. Why do they insulate fat beneath their skins?

8. How do some animals survive cold?

Text 28

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