Animal life of the country
The animal life of the continental United States includes the white-tailed deer, antelope, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, black bear and others.
Some important fur-bearers are red and grey foxes, mink, snow-shoe hare, various squirrels and others.
The great destruction which early Europeans brought about in the vegetation of North America was followed by great changes in the native animal world. Such animals as the bison and the wolf are quite few today. Among the birds, one can hardly find the passenger pigeon in America at the present time.
North America’s grasslands were once filled with great numbers of pronghorns. Today they are few. It is one of the most truly American of all the animals found on this continent. It has never left North America. It is a far older animal than the bison. The pronghorn has physical characteristics of both the antelope and the goat. The running animal reaches the speed of 55 miles (90 km) an hour.
However, animals like coyotes and opossums have remained and they are found now even in greater numbers than before the coming of the Europeans. Different food, especially from the plants man grows, is the reason for this.
The opossum is the only North American animal which has a bag in which its children are carried. The babies get into the bag after their birth.
The opossum knows how it must act under different conditions. It is able “to play possum”. It can make use of almost any dark hole to hide. Its food is mainly of fruits and berries. When it finds too many other animals around, it can live on any other food or change its way of life.
The opossum of today is larger than it was 80 million years ago. It has a tail which can work as a fifth hand in the tree.
A few centuries ago, animals were an important part of the economy. So they were, for example, for the early colonists. At that time animals gave food and clothes. Wild animals were many because the hunters’ weapons were primitive and the number of hunters was not very great.
B
North-american opossum
ut as time went on the weapon became better. Such animals as
reindeer, the elk, and especially the beaver and the sable were
killed in great numbers. Later, as settlements reached across the
Great Plains, many bisons were destroyed. There are still some wild
animals in the northern forests and the mountainous west, but they
are too few.
Though animal life in North America was rich, there were no animals which man had domesticated except the dog. Wild horses which Europeans first saw in the Great Plains were born of the horses brought by the earliest colonists. Cows, sheep, pigs were also brought to North America from the Old World. Not one of them was native.
Vocabulary:
Beaver ['bi:və] – бобр
Coyote ['kɔɪəut] – степной волк, койот
Domesticate [də'mestɪkeɪt] – приручить
Elk [elk] – лось
fur-bearer [fɜː 'bɛərə] – пушной зверь
goat [gəut] – коза
horn [hɔːn] – рог
mink [mɪŋk] – норка
opossum [ə'pɔsəm] – сумчатая крыса, опоссум
passenger pigeon ['pɪʤən] – странствующий голубь
play possum – притворяться больным или мертвым
pronghorn – вилорог, вилорогая антилопа
reindeer ['reɪndɪə] – северный олень
sable ['seɪbl] – соболь
squirrel ['skwɪr(ə)l] – белка
white-tailed deer [dɪə] – белохвостый олень