qi miao dao yu 17

Song 奇妙岛屿 17
Artist 英语听力
Album BBC南太平洋

Lyrics

[00:00.00] Fortunately for the Stephens Island tuatara,
[00:03.04] it did survive a brief mammal invasion.
[00:05.93] But for some of the other wildlife here,
[00:08.14] the invasion was rather more catastrophic.
[00:11.35] The island had been uninhabited and largely ignored,
[00:14.68] but that all changed with the construction
[00:17.38] of this lighthouse back in 1894.
[00:21.45] when the newly installed keeper,a Mr Lyall,
[00:24.98] found an unusual wren on the island,
[00:27.57] he sent a specimen to London for identification.
[00:31.19] Like many island birds,
[00:33.16] it was flightless.
[00:34.97] And perhaps that's why it wasn't Mr Lyall
[00:37.86] who first discovered the bird,
[00:39.69] but his four-legged companion.
[00:42.15] Tibbles proved to be a very efficient specimen collector.
[00:46.47] So much so,
[00:47.57] in fact, that one year later,
[00:50.16] when the bird was officially declared a new species,
[00:53.20] Mr Lyall had to regretfully inform the scientific community at large that
[00:58.11] the species was now extinct.
[01:02.29] In truth,
[01:03.06] Tibbles wasn't the only feline to blame,
[01:05.38] but the ease with which the Stephens Island wren had been dispatched was alarming.