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 little for a man on a bicycle as they do for a cow.

Not long ago a peewit trotted leisurely across the road not more than ten yards from my front wheel; and on the same day I came upon a green woodpecker enjoying a dust-bath in the public road.

He declined to stir until I stopped to watch him, then merely flew about a dozen yards away and attached himself to the trunk of a fir tree at the roadside and waited there for me to go.

Never in all my wanderings afoot had I seen a yaffingale dusting himself like a barn-door fowl! It is not seriously contended that birds can be observed narrowly in this easy way; but even for the most conscientious field naturalist the wheel has its advantages.

It carries him quickly over much barren ground and gives him a better view of the country he traverses; finally, it enables him to see more birds.