全新版大学英语视听阅读第三册unit1summary.doc

The Perfect Swarm Locusts, one of the world’s most destructive insects, can plague an area causing disastrous damage. They can have a devastating effect on a country’s food and live almost everywhere in the world. However, North America is the only continent where locusts don’t exist at all now. But before the late 1800s, the Rocky Mountain locust was a very common pest in the American West. Then an odd phenomenon vanished this species. Back in the mid-1800s, thousands of pioneers settles on the frontier of the western states and began to farm the land with their sweat of hard-working. Then in 1875, the “perfect swarm” brought them a nightmare. An enormous storm of hungry locusts forming a destructive cloud that was nearly 3000 kilometers long ate everything is sight. Everyone was frightened by what appeared in the sky and the invasion of the unbelievable of the crops and fields. Nevertheless, what was the most remarkable was that the Rocky Mountain locust simply vanished. In order to figure out the reason of the locust’s disappearance which puzzle scientists for many years, entomologist Dr.jeff Lockwood decides a trip to the Rocky Mountains under the circumstance that he doesn’t have enough dues about this species to solve this great mystery and refine his theories because there are only very few locust specimens which are in bad condition exist. Lockwood hopes to find more information from the specimens preserved in ice. Since the area to cover is so huge, he may not succeed. But the scientist will never know if he doesn’t try. Lockwood and a few of his colleagues start their trip. The landscape is so magnificent but they are here to hunt for frozen locusts. As they walk high into the mountains, they come across many difficulties, but eventually, they find the perfect spot in which locusts might be found and they get the specimens which are in nearly perfect condition. The entomologists are amazed at what they find—hundreds of Rocky Mountain locusts. The mystery m