[00:00.68]Lesson 1
[00:02.36]A puma at large
[00:09.81]Where must the puma have come from?
[00:14.48]Pumas are large, cat-like animals which are found in America.
[00:19.17]When reports came into London Zoo that a wild puma had been spotted forty-five miles south of London,
[00:26.27]they were not taken seriously.
[00:29.15]However, as the evidence began to accumulate,
[00:33.21]experts from the Zoo felt obliged to investigate,
[00:37.15]for the descriptions given by people who claimed to have seen the puma were extraordinarily similar.
[00:43.86]The hunt for the puma began in a small village where a woman picking blackberries saw 'a large cat'only five yards away from her.
[00:53.61]It immediately ran away when she saw it,
[00:56.49]and experts confirmed that a puma will not attack a human being unless it is cornered.
[01:02.94]The search proved difficult,
[01:05.20]for the puma was often observed at one place in the morning and at another place twenty miles away in the evening.
[01:12.58]Wherever it went, it left behind it a trail of dead deer and small animals like rabbits.
[01:19.38]Paw prints were seen in a number of places and puma fur was found clinging to bushes.
[01:25.39]Several people complained of 'cat-like noises' at night and a businessman on a fishing trip saw the puma up a tree.
[01:34.26]The experts were now fully convinced that the animal was a puma,
[01:38.72]but where had it come from?
[01:41.27]As no pumas had been reported missing from any zoo in the country,
[01:45.55]this one must have been in the possession of a private collector and somehow managed to escape.
[01:52.16]The hunt went on for several weeks,
[01:54.18]but the puma was not caught.
[01:57.42]It is disturbing to think that a dangerous wild animal is still at large in the quiet countryside.
美洲狮是一种体形似猫的大动物，产于美洲。当伦敦动物园接到报告说，在伦敦以南45英里处发现一只美洲狮时，这些报告并没有受到重视。可是，随着证据越来越多，动物园的专家们感到有必要进行一番调查，因为凡是声称见到过美洲狮的人们所描述的情况竟是出奇地相似。
搜寻美洲狮的工作是从一座小村庄开始的。那里的一位妇女在采摘黑莓时的看见“一只大猫”，离她仅5码远，她刚看见它，它就立刻逃走了。专家证实，美洲狮非被逼得走投无路，是决不会伤人的。事实上搜寻工作很困难，因为常常是早晨在甲地发现那只美洲狮，晚上却在20英里外的乙地发现它的踪迹。无论它走哪儿，一路上总会留下一串死鹿及死兔子之类的小动物，在许多地方看见爪印，灌木丛中发现了粘在上面的美洲狮毛。有人抱怨说夜里听见“像猫一样的叫声”；一位商人去钓鱼，看见那只美洲狮在树上。专家们如今已经完全肯定那只动物就是美洲狮，但它是从哪儿来的呢？由于全国动物园没有一家报告丢了美洲狮，因此那只美洲狮一定是某位私人收藏豢养的，不知怎么设法逃出来了。搜寻工作进行了好几个星期，但始终未能逮住那只美洲狮。想到在宁静的乡村里有一头危险的野兽继续逍遥流窜，真令人担心。