Massaging a cayman
为美洲鳄做按摩
Reptiles were never frightening to him, only fun. The little spectacled cayman, mysteriousin its glass case in his boyhood bedroom, or so super-still, sitting on his head like a tinyallosaurus with its cool claws in his hair; the pet boa constrictor, in beautiful reticulated loops,swimming across the family pool; the snakes from the bog behind his house in suburbanNorwood, New Jersey, where he would spend whole days squelching and hunting. He retainedthat obsessiveness and excitement, never growing out of them. His college thesis was on thespectacled cayman; he lived in Gainesville, Florida, where alligators sun on the paths; hisfavourite work involved drifting, by torchlight, in a silent punt among the vegetation mats ofthe Mamirau in Brazil or the llanos of Venezuela, with crocodilians darkly all about him, orlooping them up on a six-foot pole to take DNA samples from them and massage their scalynecks. It was while looking for dwarf cayman in Uganda in February that he seems to havecontracted the malaria that killed him.
于他而言,爬行类动物一点不可怕,反而是乐趣。小眼镜美洲鳄不可思议地躺在他孩提时代卧室的玻璃箱里,或者像一只把冷僳僳的爪子抓住他头发的小霸王龙,如此安静地坐在他的头上;备受宠爱的大王蟒呈迷人的环状,在他的家用池子里来回游动;在新泽西洲诺伍德郊区,他住房后面的泥塘,是他愿意整天在里面咯吱咯吱行走并猎物的乐土,那里有种种蛇类。他乐此不疲、兴奋异常、从不言弃。他的大学论文就是写的有眼镜状斑纹的美洲鳄;他曾经居住的地方佛罗里达州的盖恩斯维尔,鳄鱼在小路上晒太阳;借着手电的光亮,划着静行无声的平底船,在巴西的马尔马拉或委内瑞拉的亚诺斯河流植物垫衬的水中漂流,是他所钟爱的工作的一部分,其间,黑色鳄鱼遍及他的四周,或者,把鳄鱼环绕在一个6英尺长的杆子上,以采集它们的DNA样本,然后按摩它们那多鳞的脖子。今年2月,他在乌干达寻找小美洲鳄时,似乎染上了致他于死命的疟疾。
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