EC-Rd余光中译APromiseofSpring春之生机C
A Promise of Spring──Rennicke, Jeff, Reader’s Digest, March 1998, 152-157. 春之生機──余光中譯
1 Nothing. No tracks but my own are stitched into the dusting of fresh snow, white as birch bark, that fell during the night. No flittering shadows in the trees, not a sliver of bird song in the air.
2 What sun there is this time of year shines weakly, halfheartedly through the white gauze of clouds, offering not even the slightest pretense of warmth. For nearly a week now the temperatures around my Wisconsin cabin have not risen above zero. The mercury seems painted to the bottom of the thermometer. A shiver runs through me as I stomp my feet for warmth and then listen again for any sign of life. The only sound is from the bare tips of branches chattering like teeth.
3 At first glance nature doesn't seem to have invested much in this late-winter day. The fore
st can seem like a rough etching — barren, lifeless and gray. The sight of flakes parachuting onto the front lawn, which swept you up in December, now just means you have to scrape your car windshield. There are subtle beauties — pine branches tipped in white, the pale-blue glow of moonlight off the snow. But this deep into winter, you look less for beauty than for signs that spring has not been forgotten.
4 They are not easy to find. Once it was believed that nature simply wiped the slate clean every winter, a kind of yearly apocalypse followed by a miracle rebirth each spring. Mice were thought to regenerate spontaneously from rag piles. Frogs and turtles climbed out of puddles, spawned by magic spring rains. Birds changed into other animals to get through the frigid months.
5 The real ways nature copes with the cold are almost as amazing as these old tales. Winter gives wildlife two basic choices: leave or tough it out. In some places, the landscape empties like a jug of water kicked over. Branches bend under the weight of mixed flocks of blackbirds, cowbirds and starlings, a hundred thousand strong, gathering f
or mass migrations. Two-thirds of the bird species that nest in North America move to warmer climates.
6 A hundred million monarch butterflies, like wildflowers on wings, travel sometimes 4000 miles to Mexico, Texas and California. Caribou stream out 1 什麼也沒有。昨夜剛下的新雪，白得像樺樹皮，只有我自己的足印在遍撒的雪上交織。樹林裏沒有拍翅的鳥影，空中也全無鳥聲。
2 到這種季節，有陽光也很微弱，隔着白茫茫的雲層，有氣無力，不帶來一絲暖意。幾乎一個禮拜了，在威斯康辛我的木屋這一帶，氣溫始終不超過零度。水銀像是畫在寒暑表底部一般。我跺腳取暖，再細聽有什麼生命的消息，一面竟感到全身一陣寒顫。唯一的聲響來自空禿的枝，像牙齒在打哆嗦。
3 一眼看去，造化對這樣的深冬似乎不怎麼照顧。森林簡直像一幅粗略的蝕刻板畫──荒涼、死寂、暗淡。雪片像降落傘一般降在屋前的草地，十二月間這樣的景曾令你感動，現在只意味著你得把汽車的擋風玻璃刮一下了。含蓄的美景還是有的──白雪點綴松樹枝梢，雪地反映淺藍的月。但是冬深如此，你所尋的與其說是美景，不如說是有什麼徵
兆暗示春天未被遺忘。
4 但徵兆不易尋。從前大家認為：每到冬天造化索性來個大掃除，像是為殘年送終，好待春天帶來新生的奇蹟。從前大家以為老鼠是從破布堆裏自然復活；青蛙和烏龜爬出池塘，是靠春雨的魔力生長；而禽類要變成其他動物才能挨過冰封的季節。
5 造化應付嚴寒的實際方法，幾乎像前述的古老傳說一樣神奇。冬天給野生動物兩大選擇：若不搬家就得苦撐。有些地方四望空寂，像一隻踢翻的水罐。混雜成的山烏、牛鳥、掠鳥，多達十萬隻，聚齊了準備大舉遷徙，把樹枝全壓彎了。定居在北美洲的鳥類裏，有三分之二遷去較暖的地區。
6 多達一億隻叢斑蝶像飛舞的野花，有時竟會遠征四千英里外的墨西哥、德州、加州。冬天剛降霜，馴鹿就hibernating
of the high Arctic with the first frosts of winter. Gray whales travel thousands of miles seeking warmth, food and sunlight.
7 Not all migrations span the globe, however. Many species make short trips, sometimes
only a few miles, to take advantage of local conditions known as microclimates. Elk in Colorado move from high country to nearby valleys. Bald eagles in Alaska seek open water. White-tailed deer in these Wisconsin woods search out a south-facing slope to catch the morning sun.
8 Other creatures devise their own ways to deal with the harsh realities of winter. Musk ox stand with their backs to the below-zero wind, slowly breathing through nostrils that warm the supercooled arctic air before it is taken into the lungs. Polar bears stay warm by laying on layers of fat up to seven inches thick beneath a coat of fur with nearly 10,000 hairs per square inch. Their rough footpads are skid-resistant on the ice.
9 The survival of some species seems nothing short of miraculous. The chickadee, for example, weighing just one-third of an ounce, seems a tiny spark of life to throw to the mercy of frigid, 40-
m.p.h. winds.
10 To keep their internal furnace stoked, chickadees eat twice as much food in winter as in summer. They feed almost constantly during daylight to accumulate a layer of fat that will burn slowly through the cold night. They also have 30-percent more feathers in the winter and can fluff them up, trapping a layer of warm air.
11 When it gets very cold, chickadees lower themselves into a kind of controlled hypothermic state, dropping their body temperatures as much as 20 degrees below the normal 104, thereby slowing energy consumption. With any hint of warmth, chickadees emerge from their sheltered caverns of thick brush, chirping softly and eating, always eating.
12 Many coldblooded species bury themselves in the mud to avoid freezing, slowing themselves to near-death states. Wood frogs actuallyfreeze solid, like lumps of ice, and thaw out come spring. The frog floods its bloodstream with glucose, a natural antifreeze that prevents cell damage — a trick also used by garter snakes, insects and painted turtles. 從高緯的北極地區源源南下。灰鯨為了取暖覓食、追求陽光，不惜遠航幾千英里。

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