"Those are some of the fly-away seeds that Rap spoke of a moment ago. The fluff is not the seed, but a sort of sail to which the seed is fastened, that the wind may blow it away to another place to grow. If you look carefully you will see that the birds do not eat thistle-down, but only the seed; they will soon use the down to line their pretty round cup-shaped nests." "Oh, yes," said Dodo, "there are lots of fluffy seeds, and they mostly belong to very bad weeds. Olive has been telling us about them, Uncle Roy, and so of course the Goldies do heaps of good by eating them. If they eat those 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 field edges, where the composite flowers 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 I 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 seed of yellow sunflowers shouldn't make birds yellow!" But in spite of her argument Nat and Rap continued to laugh.
"It must be hard to tell them when they lose their yellow feathers," said Nat finally.
"No; Goldfinches keep up a habit by which you can always tell them, old or young, male or female, in summer or winter. Can you guess what it is?"
"I know! Oh, I know!" cried Rap. "They always fly with a dip and a jerk."
The American Goldfinch