英语听书《海底两万里》第197期 第14章 黑潮暖流(11)

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是一条箭鱼。我于是说了。

It's a Chinese triggerfish, Ned Land replied.

尼德·兰回答：是一条中国箭鱼。

Genus Balistes, family Scleroderma, order Plectognatha, Conseil muttered.

康塞尔于是低声说：箭鱼属，硬皮科，固颚目。

Assuredly, Ned and Conseil in combination added up to one outstanding naturalist¹.

毫无疑问，尼德·兰和康塞尔，他们俩合起来，会成为一位出色的生物学家。

The Canadian was not mistaken. Cavorting² around the Nautilus was a school of triggerfish with flat bodies, grainy skins, armed with stings on their dorsal³ fins⁴, and with four prickly rows of quills⁵ quivering on both sides of their tails. Nothing could have been more wonderful than the skin covering them: white underneath⁶, gray above, with spots of gold sparkling in the dark eddies⁷ of the waves. Around them, rays were undulating like sheets flapping in the wind, and among these I spotted⁸, much to my glee, a Chinese ray, yellowish on its topside, a dainty pink on its belly⁹, and armed with three stings behind its eyes; a rare species whose very existence was still doubted in Lacépède's day, since that pioneering classifier of fish had seen one only in a portfolio¹⁰ of Japanese drawings.

加拿大人并没有弄错。面前是一群箭鱼，压扁的身躯。皱纹的皮肤，背脊上有箭链式的武器，在诺第留斯号周围游来游去，鼓动着它们尾巴两边的四排尖刺。再没有比它们的外表更使人赞赏的了，上边灰色，下面全白，点点的金黄在波浪的漩涡中间闪闪发亮，多么美丽！在箭鱼中间，有鳃鱼，像随凤招展的台布，翻来转去，鳃鱼中我看到了使我很喜欢的那种中国鲤鱼，它上半身黑黄色，肚下淡淡的玫瑰色,眼睛后面带有三根刺；这种鱼是很少有的一种，拉色别德当时甚至于还不敢相信有这种鱼，他只在一本日本的图画书中看见过。

For two hours a whole aquatic¹¹ army escorted the Nautilus. In the midst of their leaping and cavorting, while they competed with each other in beauty, radiance, and speed, I could distinguish some green wrasse, bewhiskered mullet marked with pairs of black lines, white gobies from the genus Eleotris with curved caudal fins and violet spots on the back, wonderful Japanese mackerel from the genus Scomber with blue bodies and silver heads, glittering azure¹² goldfish whose name by itself gives their full description, several varieties of porgy or gilthead (some banded gilthead with fins variously blue and yellow, some with horizontal heraldic bars and enhanced by a black strip around their caudal area, some with color zones and elegantly corseted in their six waistbands), trumpetfish with flutelike beaks¹³ that looked like genuine seafaring woodcocks and were sometimes a meter long, Japanese salamanders, serpentine¹⁴ moray eels¹⁵ from the genus Echidna that were six feet long with sharp little eyes and a huge mouth bristling¹⁶ with teeth; etc.

在两小时内，整整一大群的水族部队围绕在诺第留斯号周围。在它们的戏耍，它们的跳跃中间，当它们以美丽、光彩和速度来彼此比赛对抗的时候，我分别认出：青色的海婆婆，带有双层黑线的海诽绸鱼，圆团团的尾，白颜色，背上带紫红斑点的虾虎鱼，身上蓝色，头银白色的日本海中的美丽鳍鱼，不用描写，单单名字就可以看出的辉煌的碧琉璃鱼，或带蓝色或带黄色的鳍的条纹鳃鱼，尾上特别有一条黑带的线条鳃鱼，漂亮的裹在六条带中的线带鳃鱼，真正笛子口一般的笛口鱼，间有长至一米的海鹌鹑，日本的火蛇，多刺的鳗鱼，眼睛细小生动，大嘴中长有利牙的六英尺长蛇等等。

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