Which brings us to another reason for our uncertainty about extinctions: the paltriness of the fossil record.

贫乏的化石记录。

Picking up on Aristotle's passing remark about the paltriness of slaves, think of the moment in Euripides' Orestes when Helen's Phrygian slave comes onstage toward the end of the play.

拿起亚里士多德关于奴隶卑微的评论，想想欧里庇得斯的奥瑞斯忒斯中海伦的弗里吉亚奴隶在戏剧结束时登台的那一刻。