214 CITIZEN BIRD 



"Oh, yes," said Uodo, "there are lots of fluffy seeds, 

 and they mostly belong to very bad weeds. Olive has 

 been telling us about them. Uncle Koy, and so of course 

 the Goldies do heaps of good by eating them. If they 

 eat these weed-seeds and do not need insects they can 

 live here all winter — can't they, uncle?" 



"Certainly; they gather in flocks after their nesting- 

 time, which you see is very late. Then the males shed 

 their bright-yellow feathers, and look exactly like their 

 wives and children. Still, they make a merry party 

 flying about in the garden and held edges, where the 

 composite flow^ers have left them food, whispering and 

 giggling all day long — -even singing merrily now and 

 then. They often have hard times in winter, and when 

 I am here at the Farm I always scatter canary seed on 

 the snow for them." 



" What is a com-pos-ite flower ? " asked Dodo. 



" A kind of flower which has a great many little 

 blossoms crowded together in a bunch, so that they 

 look like one big flower — such as a dandelion, thistle, 

 or sunflower. Olive will tell you more about them to- 

 morrow. She is the Flower Lady, you know — I am 

 only your Bird Uncle, and if I mix up flowers with 

 birds 1 shall be apt to confuse you." 



" They eat sunflower seeds," said Rap. " We grow 

 these seeds for our hens and the Goldies always get 

 their share." 



" I wonder if that is why they are such a beautiful 

 yellow," said Dodo. " ' Flying Sunflower ' would be a 

 nice name for them. No, you needn't laugh at me, 

 Nat ; the man in the bird store said he gave Canaries 

 red pepper to make them red, so I don't see why the 



