wn to readers on the
other side of the Atlantic than in England. I remember reading it with
pleasure and pride on account of the author's name, Florence Merriam,
seeing that, on my mother's side, I am partly a Merriam myself (of the
branch on the other side of the Atlantic), and having been informed that
all of that rare name are of one family, I took it that we were related,
though perhaps very distantly. "A-birding on a Broncho" suggested an
equally alliterative title for this chapter--"Birding on a Bike"; but
I will leave it to others, for those who go a-birding are now very
many and are hard put to find fresh titles to their books. For several
reasons it will suit me better to borrow from Cobbett and name this
chapter "Rural Rides."

Sore of us do not go out on bicycles to observe the ways of birds.
Indeed, some of our common species have grown almost too familiar
with the wheel: it has become a positive danger to them. They not
infrequently mistake its rate of speed and injure themselves in
attempting to fly across it. Recently I had a thrush knock himself
senseless against the spokes of my forewheel, and cycling friends have
told me of similar experiences they have had, in some instances the
heedless birds getting killed. Chaffinches are like the children in
village streets--they will not get out of your way; by and by in rural
places the merciful man will have to ring his bell almost incessantly to
avoid running over them. As I do not travel at a furious speed I manage
to avoid most things, even the wandering loveless oil-beetle and the
small rose-beetle and that slow-moving insect tortoise the tumbledung.
Two or three seasons ago I was so unfortunate as to run over a large and
beautifully bright grass snake near Aldermaston, once a snake sanctuary.
He writhed and wriggled on the road as if I had broken his back, but on
picking him up I was pleased to find that my wind-inflated rubber tyre
had not, like the brazen chariot wheel, crushed his delicate vertebra;
he quickly recovered, and when released glided swiftly and easily away
into cover. Twice only have I deliberately tried to run down, to tread
on coat-tails so to speak, of any wild creature. One was a weasel,
the other a stoat, running along at a hedge-side before me. In both
instances, just as the front wheel was touching the tail, the little
flat-headed rascal swerved quickly aside and escaped.

Even some of the less common and less tame birds care as lit