Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world;

要不是人类受一些食虫动物的保护，昆虫就会使我们无法在地球上生活下去，

It makes no difference that the forgery may have been a very skilful one:

即使伪造得很巧妙，也不能付款，

He had lived in it as a child when it was already disappearing,

作为一个孩子他曾在西部生活过，当时西部拓荒生活正在消失。

not to mention the equally numerous small animals like field mice and voles which you do not see,

地上有不显眼的无数的老鼠和田鼠之类的小动物，

This shows how long it was before we deemed it necessary to make sure that all our children could share in the knowledge accumulated by the'happy few' during the past centuries.

这说明，经过了多么漫长的时间之后，我们才认识到，有必要确保我们的孩子享有多少个世纪以来由‘少数幸运者’所积累起来的知识。

He is also, incidentally, an unforgivable bore.

顺便说一句，他也是个不可饶恕的令人厌烦的人。