Word: undergrowth
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...adequately explained. North American fireflies generally light individually or sometimes in uncoordinated group flashing. Writing in Nature, Zoologist John Buck and his wife believe that the Asian male fireflies' synchronous flashing is actually a photic call that lures females to the trees for mass mating. Because the Asian undergrowth is so dense, the male insects use rhythmic beaconing in order to shine through and be seen by the females. In effect, the synchronous flashing becomes mass advertising...
Lewis' speech, entitled "Words and Music," pointed out the difficulties of creating a simple lyric today. The British poet suggested that writing words for music can help by "clearing away much of the verbal undergrowth." The music can be a "cover for the simplicity of the words," Lewis explained...
...machine a couple of hundred yards long. Out in front of it, smaller machines fell the great trees with laser beams. Blink, blink. The red beams slice the trees and they topple. The great mother machine now takes over, moving forward to eat the trees and all the undergrowth, meanwhile extruding four-lane highways from its distant rear. Dazzling cities spring up out of the bush to either side...
...modern airport, not far from a modern, antiseptic government hospital. On the short trip up the Ogooué River, the visitors pass natives skimming by in brand-new boats powered by Evinrude outboards. Finally they reach Schweitzer's hospital. Set ghostlike amid wild palms and tangled jungle undergrowth, its tin roofs and ramshackle wooden buildings are worthy of Rain or The Heart of Darkness...
...columnist, was moved by amusement: "Now Tony Snowdon, as the Observer calls him [to Cassandra, Tony was 'a royal Dicky-bird'], has flown from Kensington Palace to the jungle that is Fleet Street. In a trice, the macaws, the parrots and other screaming birds in the inky undergrowth have set up a-screeching and a-yelling that splits the eardrums...