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By the mid 1800s, the horse and the cowboy had come to symbolize the wild west. And of course, with the cowboys came cattle. As the bison quickly vanished from the landscape, cattle filled their place.
到19世纪中叶，马与牛仔成为了辽阔西部的象征。当然，既然提到牛仔，那么一定会提到牛。随着北美野牛快速地从大陆上消失，家牛取代了他们的位置。
Meanwhile increasing numbers of the tame horses escaped into the wild. These feral horses became known by the Spanish name, mustang. They put extra pressure on the dwindling bison numbers by competing for their grazing sites and drinking holes.
与此同时，越来越多的被驯服的马儿逃到了西部。这些野马成为了西班牙语中所称的“木斯塘马（mustang）”，它们数量的上升也给北美野牛的存活增添不少压力，它们与北美野牛争抢草原和水源。
Mustangs form social groups led by a dominant stallion, echoing their prehistoric relatives that lived here during the Ice Age.
木斯塘马是一个群居的种族，由一匹占统治地位的公马领导整个族群，这一点和它们冰河时代栖息于此的史前亲戚相同。
Bred to carry the weight of a rider, mustangs are larger than those early wild horses, but they still display the same kind of behavior.
木斯塘马是供人骑乘的，从体重看，他们比那些之前的野马体型更大，但是两种马匹的行为有很多相同之处。
By the early 1800s, the wild horse was well and truly back in North America, but how did other wildlife on the continent survive alongside growing human populations?
19世纪早期，野马真正回归北美大陆，但是大陆上其他的野外生物是怎么在人类数量速度增加的情况下存活的呢？
Some wild creatures did the reverse of mustangs by becoming tame and choosing to live close to people. The purple martin became an unofficial mascot for native inhabitants in the eastern half of the continent. Here people erected special nesting sites to encourage the birds to stay.
一些野外生物也和木斯塘马一样选择了追随人类并被其驯服。在大陆的东半侧，北美洲紫燕在当地居民眼中是一种吉祥物。在这里，人类为紫燕建巢并希望这些鸟儿留在这里。
英文文本来自普特英语，译文属可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可不得转载。
