“I’ll show you,” said Uncle George. As he spoke he took up a fresh daisy flower. “Look!” he said, “what a pretty flower it is, with its golden centre and its bright white edge tipped with red. It is like a beautiful star.” Then he pulled off all the large white florets. “Look at it now,” he said. “It is a dingy, ugly little flower. Without its white florets it would not be seen at all. Now perhaps you can tell me what the large white florets are for.” “To help us to see them at a distance,” said Frank. “So that bees and other flying insects may be able to see them,” said Uncle George. “Insects visit flowers for honey, and, in doing so, carry the yellow dust, or pollen, from flower to flower. This pollen, as I told you before, has to do with the making of seeds: and stronger seeds are produced if the pollen comes from another flower. “Now compare a white floret with a yellow one, and you will notice still another difference between them. “Round the _stigma_—that is the forked tube which leads to the seed-vessel—in the yellow florets, there is a yellow ring of _stamens_, or pollen-boxes. It is shaped like a little barrel with its ends knocked out, and the _stigma_ grows right up through it. “In the white florets there are no pollen-boxes of any kind. “Thus, we see that the inner florets are _perfect_ florets which produce seeds. “The outer florets have all run to petal. Their business is to show the way to the plain little florets in the middle. “There is another thing about the daisy that I should like you to notice,” Uncle George continued. “If you go out on a dull day, or in the evening, you will find all the daisy flowers closed up. They only open out in bright sunshine, when all the insects are flying about.” Exercises on Lesson VII. 1. Daises are called “composite” flowers. Can you tell why? Cut a large “ox-eye daisy” or corn marigold through the centre and examine the florets carefully. 2. Using a lens, draw separately, an inside and an outside floret. Make your drawings large, and name the various parts of each floret. 3. Take two ox-eye daisies. Pull off all the white florets of one of them. Then compare them. Pin both flowers up on the wall. Go back about thirty paces and note which flower is best seen. 4. The daisy leaves form a little rosette on the ground. Make a collection of wild plants which have similar leaves. Draw a single leaf of each, and compare with those of the daisy. [Illustration: Nest of Chaffinch.] VIII.—CHAFFINCH AND SONG-THRUSH. It was Frank who found the chaffinch’s nest in the wood. It was built in the fork of a small tree, about eight feet from the ground. Although not surrounded either by branches or leaves, it was completely hidden, for the cunning little birds had matched the outside of the nest exactly with the bark of the tree.