Lesson 1 A Puma at large Pumas are large, ____1________ (长得像猫的) animals which are found in America. When reports came into London Zoo that a wild puma had been _______2_____ (被发现) forty-five miles south of London, they _____________3________ (不被重视)However, as the evidence began to _____4___ (积聚) , experts from the Zoo _______5_______ (感到必须) investigate, for the descriptions given by people who claimed to have seen the puma were ________6__________(出奇得) similar. The hunt for the puma began in a small village ___7_______ (which/where?) a woman picking blackberries saw 'a large cat' only five yards away from her. It immediately ran away when she saw it, and experts ____8________ (认为) that a puma will not attack a human being unless ______9_______ (它被逼的走投无路) . The search proved difficult, for the puma was often ______10_______ (被看到) at one place in the morning and at another place twenty miles away in the evening. Wherever it went, it ______11_______ (留下)it a trail of dead deer and small animals like rabbits. Paw prints were seen in a number of places and puma fur was found clinging to bushes. Several people complained of "cat-like noises' at night and a businessman on a fishing trip saw the puma up a tree. The experts were now ____12_____ (充分相信)that the animal was a puma, but where had it come from? As no pumas had been reported missing from any zoo in the country, this one must have been _______13_______ (属于...) a private collector and somehow managed to escape. The hunt went on for several weeks, but the puma was not caught. It is _____14_____ (不安) to think that a dangerous wild animal is still ____15_______(逍遥法外) in the quiet countryside.