being unseasoned by use), being more yielding, is apt after a little use to lose its relative strength, and so spoil the proper balance of the bow. This grafting of one broken limb upon. another may be carried to the length of grafting together two limbs of different sorts. Mr. P. Muir, who was as good a bowyer as he was an accurate shot, had a favourite bow, that did him good service in 1865 at Clifton, when he took the third place at the Grand National Archery Meeting. This bow in one limb was yew-backed yew, and in the other lance backed with hickory. A bow that is weak in the centre, and not sufficiently strong to allow of the ends being further reduced, may be brought to the required shape, and strengthened by the addition of a short belly.

With regard to unstringing the bow during the shooting, say, of a York Round of 144 arrows, at the three distances, a good bow will not need it, if the shooting be moderately quick, excepting at the end of each of the distances. If there happen to be many shooters, or very slow ones, it may be unstrung after every three or four double ends; and of course it should be unstrung whenever an interruption of the shooting may occur from rain, or any other cause; but it certainly appears unnecessary to unstring the bow after each three shots, as this is an equally uncalled-for strain upon the muscles of the archer and relief to the grain of the wood. In a discussion on this subject, however, between Mr. James Spedding and Mr. P. Muir, the latter maintained that to be unstrung at each end was as agreeable to the bow as to rest on a camp-stool was to the archer. Some archers contend that it is better to have the bow strung some few minutes before the commencement of the shooting.

All that has been said respecting men's bows, with the exception of strength and length, applies equally to those used by ladies. The usual strength of these latter varies from 24 lbs. to 30 lbs. In length they should not be less than five feet. The usual length of a lady's arrow being twenty-five inches,

whilst that of a gentleman is twenty-eight inches, it appears that, when fully drawn, a lady's bow must be bent more in proportion to its length than that of a gentleman. The proportion between the bows being as 5 to 6, whilst that of the arrows is as 6 to 7; yet ladies' bows appear to be quite capable of bearing this extra strain safely.

As bows of three pieces are seldom to be met with manufactured for the use of ladies, their choice of weapons is limited to self-yews, yew-backed yews, yew backed with hickory, and lance backed with hickory; also self-lance bows for beginners, &c. Ladies' bows of snake and other hard woods are still to be met with; but they are so vastly inferior to those above-mentioned that it is scarcely necessary to refer to them.

It is too common a practice amongst archers to throw the consequences of their own faults upon the bowmakers, accusing the weapon of being the cause of their failures, instead of blaming their own carelessness or want of skill. But, before this can be justly done, let each be quite certain that he has chosen his bow with care, and kept it with care; if otherwise, any accidents occurring are, ten to one, more likely to be the result of his own fault than that of the bowmaker.

27

CHAPTER III.

OF THE ARROW

THE arrow is perhaps the most important of all the implements of the archer, and requires the greatest nicety of make and excellence of materials; for, though he may get on without absolute failure with an inferior bow or other tackle, unless the arrow be of the best Robin Hood himself would have aimed in vain. Two things are essential to a good arrow, namely, perfect straightness, and a stiffness or rigidity sufficient to stand in the bow, i.e. to receive the force of the bow as delivered by the string without flirting or gadding; for a weak or supple is even worse than a crooked arrow-and it need hardly be said how little conducive to shooting straight is the latter. The straightness of the arrow is easily tested by the following simple process. Place the extremities of the nails of the thumb and middle finger of the left hand so as just to touch each other, and with the thumb and same finger of the right hand spin the arrow upon the nails at about the arrow's balancing-point; if it revolve truly and steadily, keeping in close and smooth contact with the nails, it is straight; but if it jump in the very least the contrary is the case. In order to test its strength or stiffness the arrow must be held by the nock, with its pile placed on some solid substance. The hand at liberty should now be pressed downwards on the middle of the arrow. A very little experience as to whether the arrow offer efficient resistance to this pressure will suffice to satisfy the archer about its stiffness. An arrow that is weaker on one side than on the other should also be rejected.

Arrows are either selfs or footed; the former being made of a single piece of wood (these are now seldom in use, except for children), and the latter have a piece of different and harder wood joined on to them at the pile end. A shaft,' says old Roger Ascham, hath three principal parts—the stele, the feather, and the head.' The stele, or wooden body of the arrow, used to be, and still is occasionally, made of different sorts of wood; but for target use, and indeed for any other description of modern shooting, all may be now discarded save one-red deal, which when clean, straight of grain, and well seasoned, whether for selfs or footed shafts, is incomparably superior to all others. For the footing any hard wood will do; and if this be solid for one inch below the pile it will be amply sufficient. Lance and Washaba are perhaps the best woods for this purpose; the latter is the toughest, but the former Mr. Ford preferred, as he thought the darkness of the Washaba had a tendency to attract the eye. The darker woods, however, are now mostly in use. This footing has three recommendations: the first, that it enables the arrow to fly more steadily and get through the wind better; the second, that, being of a substance harder than deal, it is not so easily worn by the friction it unavoidably meets with on entering the target or the ground; and the third, that this same hardness saves the point from being broken off should it happen to strike against any hard substance-such, for instance, as a stone in the ground or the iron leg of a target-stand. Before the shooting is commenced, and after it is finished, the arrows should be rubbed with a piece of oiled flannel. This will prevent the paint of the target from adhering to them. If in spite of this precaution any paint should adhere to them, sandpaper should on no account be used to clean them: this is most objectionable, as it will wear away the wood of the footing. Turpentine should be applied, or the blunt back of a knife.

Before entering upon the subject of the best shape for the

'stele' of the arrow for practical use, it is necessary to say a few words upon a point where the theory and practice of archery apparently clash.

If the arrow be placed on the bowstring as if for shooting, the bow drawn, and an aim taken at an object, and if the bow be then slowly relaxed, the arrow being held until it returns to the position of rest-i.e. if the passage of the arrow over the bow be slow and gradual-it will be found, if the bow be held quite firmly during this action, that the arrow does not finally point to the object aimed at, but in a direction deviating considerably to the left of it-in fact, that its direction has been constantly deviating more and more from the point of aim at each point during its return to the position of rest. This is, of course, due to the half-breadth of the bow, the nock of the arrow being carried on the string, in a plane passing through the string and the axis of the bow's length; and this deviation will be greater if the arrow be chested (i.e. slighter at the pile than at the nock), and less if it be bobtailed (i.e. slighter at the nock than at the pile) than if the arrow be cylindrical throughout. If the same arrow, when drawn to the head, be loosed at the object aimed at-i.e. if the passage of the arrow over the bow be impulsive and instantaneous-it will go straight to the object aimed at, the shooting being in all respects perfect.

How, then, is the difference of the final direction of the arrow in the two cases to be explained?

It must be observed that the nock of the arrow being constrained to move, as it does move in the last case, causes a pressure of the arrow upon the bow (owing to its slanting position on the bow, and its simultaneous rapidity of passage), and therefore a reacting pressure of the bow upon the arrow. This makes the bow have quite a different effect upon the deviation from what it had in the first case, when the arrow moved slowly and gradually upon the bow (being held by the nock), the obstacle presented by the half-breadth of the bow