In June in the Forest the rather alarming stag-beetle is to be seen on the wing on a warm evening; though really harmless, its size and habit of buzzing round frightens people who are not acquainted with its ways. They are called locally, "pinch-bucks," as their horns resemble the antlers of a buck, and they can nip quite hard by pressing them together. I once saw a fight between a stag-beetle and a toad, it had evidently been proceeding for some time as both combatants were exhausted, but neither had gained any special advantage. CHAPTER XXIV. CYCLING--PAGEANTS OF THE ROADS--ROADSIDE CREATURES--HARMONIOUS BUILDING--COLLECTING OLD FURNITURE AND CHINA. "I may soberly confess that sometimes, walking abroad after my studies, I have been almost mad with pleasure--the effect of nature upon my soul having been inexpressibly ravishing and beyond what I can convey to you." --JOHN INGLESANT. I suppose that the bicycle has given, and gives, as much pleasure to fairly active people as any machine ever invented. I must have been one of the first cyclists in England, as my experience dates from the days when bicycles were first imported from France. The high bicycle appeared later, but the earlier machines were about the height of the present safety, with light wooden wheels and iron tyres. The safety, with pneumatic tyres, did not arrive till nearly thirty years later, and it was the latter invention that brought about the popularity of cycling. The difference between cycling and walking has been stated thus: "When a man walks a mile he takes on an average 2,263 steps, lifting the weight of his body with each step. When he rides a bicycle of the average gear he covers a mile with the equivalent of 627 steps, bears no burden, and covers the same distance in less than one third of the time." People constantly tell me that cycling is all very well for getting from place to place, but otherwise they don't care about it, which I can only account for by supposing that they find it a labour more or less irksome, or that they have never developed their perceptive faculties, and have no real sympathy with the life of woods and fields or the spirit of the ancient farms and villages.