高中英语教学：Feather Detective.docx

Feather?Detective By?Pamela Tuchscherer Imagine having a job where you?can create a new science, save lives, and?solve murders. That’s what Roxie Laybourne?achieved as a feather detective. She spent?fifty-eight years at the Smithsonian National?Museum of Natural History solving bird mysteries.Born in 1910, Roxie Laybourne spent?her childhood wandering through the fields?and woods of Farmville, North Carolina.?She followed anything that crawled or flew. Seeing a bird, she’d note the size and color and then ask her grandmother to identify it.When she was ten years old, her friends wanted to be nurses or teachers. Not Roxie. She wanted to be a turkey vulture. Lying in the grass, she’d watch the vultures soar above the trees and imagine herself riding the?thermals. Soon she was flying?kites and building model?airplanes that swooped?through the air.After high school, Roxie attended Meredith College in North Carolina, where she studied science and math. She was a serious student, but showed?her independence by?being the first girl on?campus to wear blue jeans.?She also mowed the grass and?trapped rabbits to cook in the dorm.With her love of natural history, Roxie?spent weekends studying birds and animals on?display at the North Carolina State Museum?of Natural History. In time, a curator offered?her a volunteer job in the taxidermy department. She removed dead animals’ skeletons,?muscles, and organs, then preserved their natural appearance by stuffing them with cotton?and wire. Roxie learned patience as she carefully smoothed the birds’?feathers, so they lay?naturally. She loved working with the staff. In her spirit of competitiveness, she didn’t want to be better than they were, she wanted to make herself better than she was.In 1944, Roxie was hired to work in the Bird Division at the U.S. National Museum in Washington, D.C. She prepared bird specimens called study skins for the collection. Unlike the lifelike taxidermy mounts, these birds looked lifeless. Yet, Roxie fel