Rachis Rachis Rachis is a biological term for a main axis or "shaft" (from the Greek "ράχις, backbone, spine"). In vertebrates a "rachis" can refer to the series of articulated vertebrae, which encase the spinal cord. In this case the "rachis" usually forms the supporting axis of the body and is then called the spine or vertebral column. "Rachis" can also mean the central shaft of pennaceous feathers. In the gonad of the invertebrate nematode "C. elegans", a "rachis" is the central cell-free core or axis of the gonadal arm of both adult males and hermaphrodites where the germ cells have
A Summer Bird-Cage A Summer Bird-Cage A Summer Bird-Cage is the 1963 debut novel by Margaret Drabble published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. The title of the novel is taken from a quotation from the play "The White Devil" by John Webster: ‘"Tis just like a summer bird-cage in a garden: the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out." The novel centres on two characters who are sisters, Sarah and Louise. At the beginning of the story Sarah (who has recently graduated from Oxford University) has