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It is the 1830s and you're invited to dinner at the home of one of Britain's most celebrated scientists.
这是19世纪30年代，你受邀前往英国最负盛名的科学家的家中赴宴。
You take the only chair that isn't piled high with books, rocks and fossils.
你坐在唯一没有被书籍、岩石和化石堆满的椅子上。
Raucous children are eager to show you their pets. The air is a dusty cocktail of smells.
喧闹的孩子们迫不及待地向你展示他们的宠物。空气中弥漫着混杂灰尘的古怪气味。
But at last dinner arrives. Is it roast turkey, mutton, ham? No, it's mouse on toast.
终于等到晚餐上桌。会是烤火鸡、羊肉还是火腿？不，是烤吐司配老鼠。
Your host is William Buckland, and he's a zoophage, someone with a passion for eating one of every animal on Earth. Mouse is just the starter.
你的东道主是威廉·巴克兰，他是一位“动物吞噬者”，立志尝遍地球上每一种动物。老鼠只是开胃菜。
Buckland was born in 1784 and became the first person ever to take geology -- the study of the origin, history, and structure of the Earth -- at the University of Oxford.
巴克兰生于1784年，是牛津大学首位专攻地质学（研究地球起源、历史与结构的学科）的学者。
He was then ordained as a priest, before becoming a Reader in mineralogy, giving popular, if unorthodox lectures.
在被任命为牧师后，他又成为了一名矿物学讲师，以打破常规的生动授课方式闻名。
A student recalled him sweeping down the front row one morning, holding a hyena skull.
一名学生回忆，某日清晨巴克兰挥舞着鬣狗头骨冲进第一排座位。
He picked out an undergraduate and demanded, "What rules the world?"
他揪住一名本科生质问：“什么主宰了世界？”
"Haven't an idea," the student replied.
“我不知道。”学生答道。
"The stomach, sir!" bellowed Buckland, "The stomach rules the world!"
“是胃！先生！胃统治世界！”巴克兰吼道。
And Buckland lived by this rule. Dinner at the Buckland house could consist of hedgehog, crocodile, panther, sea slug, porpoise, mole and even earwig.
巴克兰身体力行这条准则。他的家宴可能包含刺猬、鳄鱼、黑豹、海参、鼠海豚、鼹鼠甚至蠼螋。
And life was no less extraordinary between meals.
而餐间时光同样充满奇趣。
William and his wife Mary taught their children natural history in a house packed to the rafters with specimens -- animal, vegetable and mineral... living and dead.
威廉与妻子玛丽在堆满动物、蔬菜和矿物标本（有活体也有化石）的家中，向子女传授自然史知识。
When they weren't riding ponies through the dining room, or playing with snakes and frogs, the children took part in their parents' scientific studies.
孩子们或在餐厅骑小马驹，或与蛇蛙嬉戏，同时参与到父母的科学研究当中。
One particularly whacky experiment involved spreading pie pastry over the kitchen table and allowing a pet tortoise to walk across it.
一次尤为古怪的实验中，他们将馅饼皮铺满厨房长桌，让宠物乌龟爬行其上。
The family then compared the tracks to fossilised tortoise prints found in ancient sandstone. The tracks were identical.
全家人随后将其足迹与古老砂岩中的乌龟化石对比，发现完全吻合。
Besides eating, fossils were the Bucklands' passion.
除却吃饭，化石才是巴克兰家族的挚爱。
As a religious man, William believed that the Great Flood mentioned in Genesis was not just a story, but historical fact, and he spent a long time trying to reconcile the Bible's account with geological evidence.
作为虔诚教徒，威廉坚信《创世纪》中的大洪水不仅是寓言，更是史实，毕生致力于调和圣经记载与地质证据。
However, after examining the remains of exotic creatures -- including hyenas -- found in a cave in North Yorkshire, he started to question the Bible's timeline.
但在研究北约克郡洞穴发现的鬣狗等异域动物遗骸后，他开始质疑圣经的时间线。
These animals had not -- as some argued passionately -- been washed there from their tropical homes by Noah's flood, they had actually lived there!
这些动物并非如某些狂热观点所言--是被诺亚洪水从热带故乡冲来的，它们本就栖息于此！
And the passage of geological time had since turned the British Isles from a tropical to a temperate landscape.
地质变迁在不列颠群岛留下了从热带到温带的地貌证据。
William proved this by identifying large amounts of hyena dung on the cave floor.
威廉通过洞内大量鬣狗粪便化石证实此说。
And time helped explain another mystery of the era -- dinosaurs.
时光长河还揭开了另一个时代谜题--恐龙。
In 1824, Buckland announced arguably his greatest breakthrough of all -- fossil bones of a giant reptile he named "Megalosaurus", found in a slate quarry in Oxfordshire.
1824年，巴克兰宣布了毕生最重要的发现：牛津郡板岩矿场出土的巨型爬行动物化石，命名为“斑龙”。
It was the first scientific account of a dinosaur. He showed them to French anatomist Georges Cuvier, who noted the bones' similarity with living lizards.
这是科学界首次完整描述恐龙。他将化石展示给法国解剖学家乔治·居维叶，后者指出其与现代蜥蜴的相似性。
Buckland, Cuvier and others' work was vital in helping Victorian Britain understand dinosaurs and their place in evolution.
巴克兰、居维叶等人的研究，为维多利亚时代的英国理解恐龙及其进化地位奠定基础。
William's wife Mary was a keen geologist and a collector in her own right.
威廉的妻子玛丽本身即是热忱的地质学家与收藏家。
She illustrated those game-changing hyena bones for the Royal Society and produced beautiful teaching aids for William's lectures.
她为英国皇家学会绘制了颠覆认知的鬣狗骨骼图，并为威廉的讲座制作精美教具。
Like many wives of scientists in the 19th Century, she may have done much more than that, perhaps contributing to some of William's major works.
如同19世纪众多科学家的妻子，她的贡献或许远不止于此，可能参与了威廉的多项重要工作。
As for William's quest to eat the world's animals... well, he failed to complete the challenge, despite his best efforts.
至于威廉的“吃遍全球动物”的挑战...尽管全力以赴，他终究未能完成。
After a period of illness unrelated to his diet, he died in 1856.
在经历了一段与饮食无关的疾病后，他于1856年去世。
Eccentric as they were, the Bucklands remind us that science can happen anywhere -- including at home -- and that great science can also be great fun. As long as you're not a mouse.
巴克兰一家虽行为乖张，却向我们昭示科学可以发生在任何角落--包括家中，并且伟大的科学也能充满童趣。前提是你不是一只老鼠。
