The Ragged Month 63 



the fruit tough and leathery. Furthermore 

 sun-baking presages lack of sufficient leafage, 

 and it is the leaves which elaborate the sap, 

 making it fit to feed wood, and fruit and root. 

 A tree stripped of leaves just as its fruit was 

 ready to ripen, would be apt to die. Certainly 

 the fruit would dry and shrivel. Grape vines 

 so stripped do die down to the root. Next 

 year they will grow again from the root, but it 

 will be several years before the growth is 

 normal. 



Feathered folk are the raggedest things of 

 all. From the big bronze turkeys to the tini- 

 est bantams, they give their whole minds and 

 bodies to getting themselves new coats. It is 

 much the same with the birds. The fledg- 

 lings have shed part of the nest-plumage, so 

 are more unkempt and pen-feathered than 

 even their elders. The ground beneath a 

 hawk's or owl's roost is flecked with cast-ofF 

 quills and hackles. Birds of prey have all an 

 instinct of fixity, and unless greatly disturbed, 

 nest and roost on the same spot year after year. 

 They preen themselves and dress their coats 

 before leaving the perch. Still now and then 

 a straggling loose feather flutters down as they 

 fly in aerial heights. 



Ishmaels of upper air, with beak and claw 

 against every other feathered or creeping thing, 

 hawks yet cry softly and clearly, one to an- 



