96 COLIN CLOUTS CALENDAR. 



dry, stringy fodder itself into the bargain. There is 

 nothing for it but stubbing the whole patch ; and even 

 that would be very little good, for the soil here exactly 

 suits its constitution. Curiously enough, just over the 

 hedge in the Fore Acre, there is not a single stalk of it 

 to be seen, even by accident. 



The rattles are a whole group of half- developed para- 

 sites well on the way to the worst stage of degradation, 

 though not yet so utterly degenerate as the leafless tooth- 

 worts or the scaly broomrapes. They can still grow feebly 

 if left to themselves : for when you sow the seeds alone in 

 a flower-pot, by way of experiment, the young seedlings 

 will rise to an inch or two, put forth a few scrubby 

 leaves, and blossom poorly with a couple of straggling 

 flowers or so. But when you let them have some nice 

 vigorous grass-plants in the same pot, they fix upon 

 them immediately, and grow to a foot in height, with a 

 comparatively fine spike of pale primrose flowers, which 

 children sometimes know as cockscombs. Eyebright has 

 just the same trick ; and so have the two red-rattles, 

 cow-wheat, and others of their kind. There are some 

 parasites, like mistletoe, whose parasitism has become so 

 deeply engrained that their seeds will not even sprout 

 except on the body of a proper host ; and these have 

 adapted themselves to their peculiar habits by acquiring 

 very sticky berries, which fall on a bough, and are 

 gummed there by their own bird-lime. Even such a 

 hardened offender as the mistletoe, however, has partially 

 green leaves which assimilate food on their own account. 

 But there are other and still more abandoned parasites, 

 like yellow bird's-nest, which have no leaves at all, and 

 cannot provide themselves with food in any way. Yellow 



