雅思课外读物--Are cats selfish？

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分享一篇关于cats的雅思阅读文章，“Are cats selfish？”.周围养猫的朋友突然间似乎多了起来，因此也不断听说关于猫的可爱与可恨，当然可爱还是居多。本文讨论猫是不是自私的?调查的结果是众说纷纭，而从进化论的角度去考量，也依然无法准确回答到底猫是不是自私。也许，眼下我们只能下这么一个结论：猫是可爱的!

Are Cats Selfish?

It's six in the morning and your cat puts a paw on your eyelid. "It's time to

wake up," she seems to be saying. She couldn't give a monkey's how tired you

are(她可不在乎你有多困). She wants feeding.

There's a widespread perception that everything cats do is just a little

self-serving, a touch self-centred. In a word, selfish. But not content

with(不满足于)idle stereotypes(刻板印象), we put this little question – are cats

selfish? – to the BBC Earth audience.

Some of you didn't like the question at all. "Selfish is a human trait(特征),"

argued Ann Halim. "'Selfish' is hard to apply to any animal other than humans,"

agreed Kevin Bonin.

It certainly is hard, but that has never stopped us trying.

In his 1871 book The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin argued that animal minds

are similar to ours in many ways. "The difference in mind between man and the

higher animals…is certainly one of degree and not kind," he

wrote.(他写道，“没有疑问，人类和比较高级的动物在思维方面的差异只是一个度的问题，而不是类别问题”)。

If that's true, then surely a cat – or any other higher animal – might meet

the Oxford Dictionary's definition of selfish: being "concerned chiefly with

one's own personal profit or pleasure."

Many of you identified with(同意)the idea that cats are out for themselves.

"Are cats selfish??? That's like asking has the pope got a balcony?!" says

Jane Ramsden. "Let's just say, there is an I in kitty," says Dan Okeneski. "Cats

are entirely self-serving," says Frankathon Dirabis. "It's a good thing they are

cute and furry."

Gina Darlin Strange's cat has clear views about where she sleeps. "If the Sun

is shining across my bed in the morning and my daughter's in the afternoon, she

demands total access to it and will get an attitude if you move her," she

says.(她说：“如果太阳早上照在我的床上，下午照在我女儿的床上，她会要求全部占有，你要是赶她走，她就会变脸。”)

Annette Jeneane Behnke-Park's cat is constantly seeking attention. "She tries

to get us to play tag, wants what we have for food, wants my spot on the chair,

loves to lay across me at night," she says.

Some correspondents also report their cats showing signs of selfishness

towards other cats.

"Hector will steal treats from Harvey without fail if given the chance," says

Marlee Lütz. Vijaya Shadrak's tomcat began to urinate(小便)wherever two other cats

in her home liked to rest. "Now he is scaring them," she says. Bad kitty.

However, most of the people who responded say that selfishness is not a trait

they recognise in their cats.

Instead, a lot of cat-lovers describe what appear to be altruistic(利他的) acts

on the part of their pets. Altruism is defined as "selfless concern for the

well-being of others."

How else are we to interpret the domestic cat's habit of gift-giving? This is

how Chris R. Ainsworth sees his cat's tendency to leave a "decapitated

mouse/bunny/bird/chipmunk/squirrel" on his doorstep.

This generosity(慷慨)of spirit does not always involve dead animals. Sarah

Pratt's cats fetch her live animals, as well as ice cubes and hair ties.

"They're nice that way," she says. Similarly, Mary Jozwiak's cats drop their

toys outside her bedroom.

A lot of cats also seem to be in tune with the emotional state of their

owners.

Jacqueline Tong recounts how her cat kept her company throughout 19 long

hours of labour, "licking my face between every contraction".

David Penn once knew a kitten that comforted him during a bad tooth infection

by curling up on his cheek and purring him to sleep.

Jessica Natasha A's cat Gina would always be there to comfort someone if they

were sad.

Stories like these suggest that cats are not always as cold and

calculating(工于算计的)as they are commonly portrayed.

To make sense of the complex suite of behaviours displayed by domestic cats,

we have to think about their origins, says Eva Leighton. "Domestic cats still

have strong basic instincts and one of them is wariness(谨慎)and

self-preservation(自我保护)."

We know that cats are descended from the wildcat (Felis silvestris). Wildcats

are intensely solitary(孤独的)creatures, so it makes sense that domestic cats are

also happy in their own company.

We might expect that the process of domestication(驯养)would root out that

spirited independence. But cats were not domesticated in the same way as other

animals, with humans carefully choosing which ones to breed from and which

traits to encourage.

(我们也许认为，驯养的过程会让猫失去那种强烈的独立感。然而，猫的驯养却不似其他动物。在驯养其他动物时，人类会仔细挑选喂养哪些动物，或鼓励保留哪些特性。)

Instead, cats were probably responsible for their own domestication.

"It's better to think of cats the way you think of mice and rats and sparrows

and pigeons," says Carlos Driscoll, a geneticist at the National Institute on

Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Rockville, Maryland, USA.