Hunting with the Bow & Arrow

This is one of the best scores made by American archers.

Ishi's best record is as follows:

October 23, 1914.

His next best score was this:

My own best practice American round is as follows:

May 22, 1917.

Anything over 500 is considered good shooting.

It will be seen from this that the Indian was not a good target shot, but in field shooting and getting game, probably he could excel the white man.

III

ISHI'S METHODS OF HUNTING

Hunting with Ishi was pure joy. Bow in hand, he seemed to be transformed into a being light as air and as silent as falling snow. From the very first we went on little expeditions into the country where, without appearing to instruct, he was my teacher in the old, old art of the chase. I followed him into a new system of getting game. We shot rabbits, quail, and squirrels with the bow. His methods here were not so well defined as in the approach to larger game, but I was struck from the first by his noiseless step, his slow movements, his use of cover. These little animals are flushed by sound and sight, not scent. Another prominent feature of Ishi's work in the field was his indefatigable persistence. He never gave up when he knew a rabbit was in a clump of brush. Time meant nothing to him; he simply stayed until he got his game. He would watch a squirrel hole for an hour if necessary, but he always got the squirrel.

He made great use of the game call. We all know of duck and turkey calls, but when he told me that he lured rabbits, tree squirrels, wildcats, coyote, and bear to him, I thought he was romancing. Going along the trail, he would stop and say, "Ineja teway--bjum--metchi bi wi," or "This is good rabbit ground." Then crouching behind a suitable bush as a blind, he would place the fingers of his right hand against his lips and, going through the act of kissing, he produced a plaintive squeak similar to that given by a rabbit caught by a hawk or in mortal distress. This he repeated with heartrending appeals until suddenly one or two or sometimes three rabbits appeared in the opening. They came from distances of a hundred yards or more, hopped forward, stopped and listened, hopped again, listened, and ultimately came within ten or fifteen yards while Ishi dragged out his squeak in a most pathetic manner. Then he would shoot.

To test his ability one afternoon while hunting deer, I asked the Yana to try his call in twelve separate locations. From these twelve calls we had five jackrabbits and one wildcat approach us. The cat came out of the forest, cautiously stepped nearer and sat upon a log in a bright open space not more than fifty yards away while I shot three arrows at him, one after the other; the last clipped him between the ears.

This call being a cry of distress, rabbits and squirrels come with the idea of protecting their young. They run around in a circle, stamp their feet, and make great demonstrations of anger, probably as much to attract the attention of the supposed predatory beast and decoy him away, as anything else.

The cat, the coyote, and the bear come for no such humane motive; they are thinking of food, of joining the feast.

I learned the call myself, not perfectly, but well enough to bring squirrels down from the topmost branches of tall pines, to have foxes and lynx approach me, and to get rabbits.

Not only could Ishi call the animals, but he understood their language. Often when we have been hunting he has stopped and said, "The squirrel is scolding a fox." At first I said to him, "I don't believe you." Then he would say, "Wait! Look!" Hiding behind a tree or rock or bush, in a few minutes we would see a fox trot across the open forest.

It seemed that for a hawk or cat or man, the squirrel has a different call, such that Ishi could say without seeing, what molested his little brother.

Often have we stopped and rested because, so he said, a bluejay called far and wide, "Here comes a man!" There was no use going farther, the animals all knew of our presence. Only a white hunter would advance under these circumstances.

Ishi could smell deer, cougar, and foxes like an animal, and often discovered them first this way. He could imitate the call of quail to such an extent that he spoke a half-dozen sentences to them. He knew the crow of the cock on sentinel duty when he signals to others; he knew the cry of warning, and the run-to-shelter cry of the hen; her command to her little ones to fly; and the "lie low" cluck; then at last the "all's well" chirp.

Deer he could call in the fawn season by placing a folded leaf between his lips and sucking vigorously. This made a bleat such as a lamb gives, or a boy makes blowing on a blade of grass between his thumbs.

He also enticed deer by means of a stuffed buck's head which he wore as a cap, and bobbing up and down behind bushes excited their curiosity until they approached within bow-shot. Ordinarily in hunting deer, the Indian used what is termed the still hunt, but with him it was more than that. First of all he studied the country for its formation of hills, ridges, valleys, canyons, brush and timber. He observed the direction of the prevailing winds, the position of the sun at daybreak and evening. He noted the water holes, game trails, "buck look-outs," deer beds, the nature of the feeding grounds, the stage of the moon, the presence of salt licks, and many other features of importance. If possible, he located the hiding-place of the old bucks in daytime, all of which every careful hunter does. Next, he observed the habits of game, and the presence or absence of predatory beasts that kill deer.

Having decided these and other questions, he prepared for the hunt. He would eat no fish the day before the hunt, and smoke no tobacco, for these odors are detected a great way off. He rose early, bathed in the creek, rubbed himself with the aromatic leaves of yerba buena, washed out his mouth, drank water, but ate no food. Dressed in a loin cloth, but without shirt, leggings or moccasins, he set out, bow and quiver at his side. He said that clothing made too much noise in the brush, and naturally one is more cautious in his movements when reminded by his sensitive hide that he is touching a sharp twig.

From the very edge of camp, until he returned, he was on the alert for game, and the one obvious element of his mental attitude was that he suspected game everywhere. He saw a hundred objects that looked like deer, to every live animal in reality. He took it for granted that ten deer see you where you see one--so see it first! On the trail, it was a crime to speak. His warning note was a soft, low whistle or a hiss. As he walked, he placed every footfall with precise care; the most stealthy step I ever saw; he was used to it; lived by it. For every step he looked twice. When going over a rise of ground he either stooped, crawled or let just his eyes go over the top, then stopped and gazed a long time for the slightest moving twig or spot of color. Of course, he always hunted up wind, unless he were cutting across country or intended to flush game.

At sunrise and sunset he tried always to get between the sun and his game. He drifted between the trees like a shadow, expectant and nerved for immediate action.

Some Indians, covering their heads with tall grass, can creep up on deer in the open, and rising suddenly to a kneeling posture shoot at a distance of ten or fifteen yards. But Ishi never tried this before me. Having located his quarry, he either shot, at suitable ranges, or made a detour to wait the passing of the game or to approach it from a more favorable direction. He never used dogs in hunting.

When a number of people hunted together, Ishi would hide behind a blind at the side of a deer trail and let the others run the deer past. In his country we saw old piles of rock covered with lichen and moss that were less than twenty yards from well-marked deer trails. For numberless years Indians had used these as blinds to secure camp meat.

In the same necessity, the Indian would lie in wait near licks or springs to get his food; but he never killed wantonly.

Although Ishi took me on many deer hunts and we had several shots at deer, owing to the distance or the fall of the ground or obstructing trees, we registered nothing better than encouraging misses. He was undoubtedly hampered by the presence of a novice, and unduly hastened by the white man's lack of time. His early death prevented our ultimate achievement in this matter, so it was only after he had gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds that I, profiting by his teachings, killed my first deer with the bow.

That he had shot many deer, even since boyhood, there was no doubt. To prove that he could shoot through one with his arrows, I had him discharge several at a buck killed by our packer. Shooting at forty yards, one arrow went through the chest wall, half its length; another struck the spine and fractured it, both being mortal wounds.

It was the custom of his tribe to hunt until noon, when by that time they usually had several deer, obtained, as a rule, by the ambush method. Having pre-arranged the matter, the women appeared on the scene, cut up the meat, cooked part of it, principally the liver and heart, and they had a feast on the spot. The rest was taken to camp and made into jerky.

In skinning animals, the Indian used an obsidian knife held in his hand by a piece of buckskin. I found this cut better than the average hunting knife sold to sportsmen. Often in skinning rabbits he would make a small hole in the skin over the abdomen and blow into this, stripping the integument free from the body and inflating it like a football, except at the legs.

In skinning the tail of an animal, he used a split stick to strip it down, and did it so dextrously that it was a revelation of how easy this otherwise difficult process may be when one knows how. He tanned his skins in the way customary with most savages: clean skinning, brain emulsion, and plenty of elbow grease.

His people killed bear with the bow and arrow. Ishi made a distinction between grizzly bear, which he called tet na, and black bear, which he called bo he. The former had long claws, could not climb trees, and feared nothing. He was to be let alone. The other was "all same pig." The black bear, when found, was surrounded by a dozen or more Indians who built fires, and discharging their arrows at his open mouth, attempted to kill him. If he charged, a burning brand was snatched from the fire and thrust in his face while the others shot him from the side. Thus they wore him down and at last vanquished him.

In his youth, Ishi killed a cinnamon bear single handed. Finding it asleep on a ledge of rock, he sneaked close to it and gave a loud whistle. The bear rose up on its hind legs and Ishi shot him through the chest. With a roar the bear fell off the ledge and the Indian jumped after him. With a short-handled obsidian spear he thrust him through the heart. The skin of this bear now hangs in the Museum of Anthropology in mute testimony of the courage and daring of Ishi. Had this young man been given a name, perhaps they would have called him Yellow Bear.

While he shot many birds, I never saw Ishi try wing shooting except at eagles or hawks. For these he would use an arrow on which he had smeared mud to make it dark in color. A light shaft is readily discerned by these birds, and I have often seen them dodge an arrow. But the darker one is almost invisible head on. The feathers of the arrows were close cropped to make them swift and noiseless.

The sound of a bowstring is that of a sharp twang accompanied by a muffled crack. To avoid this and make a silent shot, the Indian bound his bow at the nocks with weasel fur; this effectually damped the vibration of the string, while the passage of the arrow across the bow, which gives the slight crack, is abolished by a heavy padding of buckskin at this point.

Ishi never wore an arm guard or glove or finger stalls to protect himself as other archers do. He seemed not to need them. When he released the arrow, the bow rotated in his hand so that the string faced in the opposite direction from which it started. His thumb alone drew the string, and this was so toughened that it needed no leather covering.

In a little bag he carried extra arrowheads and sinews, so that in a pinch he could mend his arrows.

When not actually in use, he promptly unstrung his bow, and gently straightened it by hand. In cold weather he heated it over a fire before bracing it. The slightest moisture would deter him from shooting, unless absolutely necessary--he was so jealous of his tackle. If his bowstring stretched in the heat or dampness, as sinew is liable to do, he shortened it by twisting one end prior to bracing it.

Before shooting he invariably looked over each arrow, straightened it in his hands or by his teeth, re-arranged its feathers, and saw that the point was properly adjusted. In fact, he gave infinite attention to detail. With him, every shot must count. Besides arrows in his quiver, he carried several ready for use under his right arm, which he kept close to his side while drawing the bow.

In all things pertaining to the handicraft of archery and the technique of shooting, he was most exacting. Neatness about his tackle, care of his equipment, deliberation and form in his shooting were typical of him; in fact, he loved his bow as he did no other of his possessions. It was his constant companion in life and he took it with him on his last long journey.

IV

ARCHERY IN GENERAL

Our experience with Ishi waked the love of archery in us, that impulse which lies dormant in the heart of every Anglo-Saxon. For it is a strange thing that all the men who have centered about this renaissance in shooting the bow, in our immediate locality, are of English ancestry. Their names betray them. Many have come and watched and shot a little, and gone away; but these have stayed to hunt.

From shooting the bow Indian fashion, I turned to the study of its history, and soon found that the English were its greatest masters. In them archery reached its high tide; after them its glory passed.

But the earliest evidence of the use of the bow is found in the existence of arrowheads assigned to the third interglacial period, nearly 50,000 years ago.

That man had material culture prior to this epoch, there is no doubt, and the use of the bow with arrows of less complicated structure must have preceded this period.

All races and nations at one time or another have used the bow. Even the Australian aborigine, who is supposed to have been too low in mental development to have understood the principles of archery, used a miniature bow and poisoned arrow in shooting game. In the magnificent collection of Joseph Jessop of San Diego, California, I saw one of these little bows scarcely more than a foot long. The arrows, he stated, the natives carried in the hair of their heads.

Those who are interested in the archaeology of the bow should read the volume on archery of the Badminton Library by Longmans.

Various peoples have excelled in shooting, notably the Japanese, the Turks, the Scythians, and the English. Others have not been suited by temperament to use the bow. The Latins, the Peruvians, and the Irish seem never to have been toxophilites. The famous long bow of Merrie Old England was brought there by the Normans, who inherited it from the Norsemen settled along the Rhine. Here grew the best yew trees in days gone by, and this, doubtless, was a strong determining factor in the superior development of their archery.

Before the battle of Hastings, the Saxons used the short, weak weapon common to all primitive people. The conquered Saxon, deprived of all arms such as the boar-spear, the sword, the ax, and the dagger, naturally turned to the bow because he could make this himself, and he copied the Norman long bow.

Although the first game preserves in England were established by William the Conqueror at this time, the Saxon was permitted to shoot birds and small beasts in his fields and therefore was allowed to use a blunt arrow, headed with a lead tip or pilum, hence our term pile, or target point. If found with a sharp arrowhead, the so-called broad-head used for killing the king's deer, he was promptly hanged. The evidence against such a poacher was summed up thus in the old legend:

Dog draw, stable stand
Back berond, bloody hand.

One found following a questing hound, posed in the stand of an archer, carrying game on his back, or with the evidence of recent butchery on his hands, was hanged to the nearest tree by his own bowstring.

It was under these circumstances that outlawry took the form of deer killing and robust archery became the national sport. In these days the legendary hero, the demi-myth, Robin Hood, was born. What boy has not thrilled at the tales of Greenwood men, the well-sped shaft, the arrow's low whispering flight, and the willow wand split at a hundred paces?

Every boy goes through a period of barbarism, just as the nations have passed, and during that age he is stirred by the call of the bow. I, too, shot the toy bows of boyhood; shot with Indian youths in the Army posts of Texas and Arizona. We played the impromptu pageants of Robin Hood, manufactured our own tackle, and carried it about with unfailing fidelity; hunted small birds and rabbits, and were the usual savages of that age.

But when it comes to the legends of the bow, the records of these past glories are so vague that we must accept them as a tale oft told; it grows with the telling.

It seems that distances were measured in feet, paces, yards, or rods with blithe indifference, and the narrator added to them at will. Robin is supposed to have shot a mile, and his bow was so long and so strong no man could draw it. In sooth, he was a mighty hero, and yet the ballads refer to him as a "slight fellow," even "a bag of bones." As a youth he slew the king's deer at three hundred yards, a right goodly shot! And no doubt it was.

Of all the bows of the days when archery was in flower, only two remain. These are unfinished staves found in the ship Mary Rose, sunk off the coast of Albion in 1545. This vessel having been raised from the bottom of the ocean in 1841, the staves were recovered and are now in the Tower of London. They are six feet, four and three-quarters inches long, one and one-half inches across the handle, one and one-quarter inches thick, and proportionately large throughout. The dimensions are recorded in Badminton. Of course, they never have been tested for strength, but it has been estimated at 100 pounds.

Determined to duplicate these old bows, I selected a very fine grained stave of seasoned yew and made an exact duplicate, according to the recorded measurements.

This bow, when drawn the standard arrow length of twenty-eight inches, weighed sixty-five pounds and shot a light flight arrow two hundred and twenty-five yards. When drawn thirty-six inches, it weighed seventy-six pounds and shot a flight arrow two hundred and fifty-six yards. From this it would seem that even though these ancient staves appear to be almost too powerful for a modern man to draw, they not only are well within our command, but do not shoot a mile.

The greatest distance shot by a modern archer was made by Ingo Simon, using a Turkish composite bow, in France in 1913. The measured distance was four hundred and fifty-nine yards and eight inches. That is very near the limit of this type of bow and far beyond the possibilities of the yew long bow. But the long bow is capable of shooting heavier shafts and shooting them harder.

Since archery is fast disappearing from the land, and the material for study will soon become extinct, I have undertaken to record the strength and shooting qualities of a representative number of the available bows in preservation, together with the power of penetration of arrows.

To do this, through the mediation of the Department of Anthropology of the University of California, I have had access to the best collection of bows in America. Thousands of weapons were at my disposal in various museums, and from these I selected the best preserved and strongest to shoot.

The formal report of these experiments is in the publications of the University, and here 'tis only necessary to mention a few of the findings.

In testing the function of these bows and their ability to shoot, a bamboo flight arrow made by Ishi was used as the standard. It was thirty inches long, weighed three hundred and ten grains, and had very low cropped feathers. It carried universally better than all other arrows tested, and flew twenty per cent farther than the best English flight arrows.

To make sure that no element of personal weakness entered into the test, I had these bows shot by Mr. Compton, a very powerful man and one used to the bow for thirty years. I myself could draw them all, and checked up the results.

It is axiomatic that the weight and the cast of a bow are criteria of its value as a weapon in war or in the chase. Weight, as used by an archer, means the pull of a bow when full drawn, recorded in pounds.

The following is a partial list of those weighed and shot. They are, of course, all genuine bows and represent the strongest. Each was shot at least six times over a carefully measured course and the greatest flight recorded. All flights were made at an elevation of forty-five degrees and the greatest possible draw was given each shot. In fact we spared no bows because of their age, and consequently broke two in the testing.

The list of foreign bows is as follows:

It will be seen from these tests that no existing aboriginal bow is very powerful when compared with those in use in the days of robust archery in old England. The greatest disappointment was in the Tartar bow which was brought expressly from Shansi, China, by my brother, Col. B. H. Pope. With this powerful weapon I expected to shoot a quarter of a mile; but with all its dreadful strength, its cast was slow and cumbersome. The arrow that came with it, a miniature javelin thirty-eight inches long, could only be projected one hundred and ten yards. In making these shots both hands and feet were used to draw the bow. A special flight arrow thirty-six inches long was used in the test, but with hardly any increase of distance gained.

After much experimenting and research into the literature, [Footnote: Balfour, Composite Bows.] I constructed two horn composite bows, such as were used by the Turks and Egyptians. They were perfect in action, the larger one weighing eighty-five pounds. With this I hoped to establish a record, but after many attempts my best flight was two hundred and ninety-one yards. This weapon, being only four feet long, would make an excellent buffalo bow to be used on horseback.

In shooting for distance, of course, a very light missile is used, and nothing but empirical tests can determine the shape, size, and weight that suits each bow. Consequently, we use hundreds of arrows to find the best. For more than seven years these experiments have continued, and at this stage of our progress the best flight arrow is made of Japanese bamboo five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, having a foreshaft of birch the same diameter and four inches long. The nock is a boxwood plug inserted in the rear end, both joints being bound with silk floss and shellacked. The point is the copper nickel jacket of the present U. S. Army rifle bullet, of conical shape. The feathers are parabolic, three-quarters of an inch long by one-quarter high, three in number, set one inch from the end, and come from the wing of an owl. The whole arrow is thirty inches long, weighs three hundred and twenty grains, and is very rigid.

With this I have shot three hundred and one yards with a moderate wind at my back, using a Paraguay ironwood bow five feet two inches long, backed with hickory and weighing sixty pounds. This is my best flight shot.

It is not advisable here to go further into this subject; let it stand that the English yew long bow is the highest type of artillery in the world.

Although the composite Turkish bows can shoot the farthest, it is only with very light arrows; they are incapable of projecting heavier shafts to the extent of the yew long bow, that is, they can transmit velocity but not momentum; they have resiliency, but not power.

Besides these experiments with bows, many tests were made of the flight and penetration of arrows. A few of the pertinent observations are here noted.

A light arrow from a heavy bow, say a sixty-five pound yew bow, travels at an initial velocity of one hundred and fifty feet per second, as determined by a stopwatch.

Shooting at one hundred yards, such an arrow is discharged at an angle of eight degrees, and describes a parabola twelve to fifteen feet high at its crest. Its time in transit is of approximately two and one-fifth seconds.

Shooting straight up, such an arrow goes about three hundred and fifty feet high, and requires eight seconds for the round trip. This test was made by shooting arrows over very tall sequoia trees, of known height.

The striking force of a one-ounce arrow shot from a seventy-five pound bow at ten yards, is twenty-five foot pounds. This test is made by shooting at a cake of paraffin and comparing the penetration with that made by falling weights. Such a striking force is, of course, insignificant when compared with that of a modern bullet, viz., three thousand foot pounds. Yet the damage done by an arrow armed with a sharp steel broad-head is often greater than that done by a bullet, as we shall see later on.

A standard English target arrow rotates during flight six complete revolutions every twenty yards, or approximately fifteen times a second. Heavy hunting shafts turn more slowly. This was ascertained by shooting two arrows at once from the same bow, their shafts being connected by a silk thread, so that one paid off as the other wound up the thread. The number of complete loops, of course, indicated the number of revolutions. A sand-bank makes a good butt to catch them. In rotating, much depends on the size and shape of the feather.

Shooting a blunt arrow from a seventy-five pound bow at a white pine board an inch thick, the shaft will often go completely through it. A broad hunting head will penetrate two or three inches, then bind. But the broad-head will go through animal tissue better, even cutting bones in two; in fact, such an arrow will go completely through any animal but a pachyderm.

To test a steel bodkin pointed arrow such as was used at the battle of Cressy, I borrowed a shirt of chain armor from the Museum, a beautiful specimen made in Damascus in the 15th Century. It weighed twenty-five pounds and was in perfect condition. One of the attendants in the Museum offered to put it on and allow me to shoot at him. Fortunately, I declined his proffered services and put it on a wooden box, padded with burlap to represent clothing.

Indoors at a distance of seven yards, I discharged an arrow at it with such force that sparks flew from the links of steel as from a forge. The bodkin point and shaft went through the thickest portion of the back, penetrated an inch of wood and bulged out the opposite side of the armor shirt. The attendant turned a pale green. An arrow of this type can be shot about two hundred yards, and would be deadly up to the full limit of its flight.

The question of the cutting qualities of the obsidian head as compared to those of the sharpened steel head, was answered in the following experiment:

A box was so constructed that two opposite sides were formed by fresh deer skin tacked in place. The interior of the box was filled with bovine liver. This represented animal tissue minus the bones.

At a distance of ten yards I discharged an obsidian-pointed arrow and a steel-pointed arrow from a weak bow. The two missiles were alike in size, weight, and feathering, in fact, were made by Ishi, only one had the native head and the other his modern substitute. Upon repeated trials, the steel-headed arrow uniformly penetrated a distance of twenty-two inches from the front surface of the box, while the obsidian uniformly penetrated thirty inches, or eight inches farther, approximately 25 per cent better penetration. This advantage is undoubtedly due to the concoidal edge of the flaked glass operating upon the same principle that fluted-edged bread and bandage knives cut better than ordinary knives.

In the same way we discovered that steel broad-heads sharpened by filing have a better meat-cutting edge than when ground on a stone.

In our experience with game shooting, we never could see the advantage of longitudinal grooves running down the shaft of the arrow, such as some aborigines use, supposed to promote bleeding. In the first place these marks are inadequate in depth, and secondly it is not the exterior bleeding that kills the wounded animal so much as the internal hemorrhage.

A sufficiently wide head on the arrow cuts a hole large enough to permit the escape of excess blood, and, as a matter of fact, nearly all of our shots are perforating, going completely through the body.

Conical, blunt, and bodkin points lack the power of penetration in animal tissue inherent in broad-heads; correspondingly they do less damage.

Catlin, in his book on the North American Indian, relates that the Mandans, among other tribes, practiced shooting a number of arrows in succession with such dexterity that their best archer could keep eight arrows up in the air at one time.

Will Thompson, the dean of American archery, writing in Forest and Stream of March, 1915, says very definitely that the feat of the legendary hero, Hiawatha, who is supposed to have shot so strong and far that he could shoot the tenth arrow before the first descended, is manifestly absurd. Thompson contends that no man ever has, or ever will keep more than three arrows up in the air at once.

Having read this and determined to try the experiment of dextrous shooting, I constructed a dozen light arrows having wide nocks and flattened rear ends so they might be fingered quickly. Then I devised a way of grasping a supply of ready shafts in the bow hand, and invented an arrow release in which all the fingers and thumb held the arrow on the string, yet remained entirely on the right side of it.

After quite a bit of practice in accurate, later in rapid, nocking, I succeeded in shooting seven successive arrows in the air before the first touched the ground. I used a perpendicular flight. Upon several occasions I almost accomplished eight at once. I feel that with considerable practice eight, and even more, are possible, proving again that there is an element of truth in all legends.

It has long been a bone of contention among archers which element of the yew, the sap wood or the heart, gives the greater cast. To obtain experimental evidence, I constructed two miniature bows, each twenty-two inches long, one of pure white sap wood, the other of the heart from the same stave. I made them the same size, and weighing about eight pounds when drawn eight inches.

Shooting a little arrow on these bows, the sap wood shot forty-three yards; the red wood sixty-six yards, showing the greater cast to be in the red yew.

Corroborating this, Mr. Compton relates that while working in Barnes's shop in Forest Grove, Oregon, during the last illness of that noted bowyer, he came across a laminated bow made entirely of sap wood. Barnes stated that he had constructed it at the instigation of Will Thompson. The cast of this bow was slow, flabby, and weak. As a shooting implement it was a failure.

Taking two pieces of wood, one white and one red, each twelve inches long, I placed them in a bench vise and fastened a spring scale to the top of each. Drawing the sap wood four inches from the perpendicular, it pulled eight pounds. Drawing the heart wood the same distance it pulled fourteen pounds, showing the greater strength of the latter. When drawn five inches from a straight line, the red piece broke. The sap wood could be bent at a right angle without fracture.

It is obvious from this that the sap wood excels in tensile strength the red wood in compression strength and resiliency. In fact, they are reciprocal in action. The red yew on the belly of the bow gives the energy, the sap wood preserves it from fracture. It is, in fact, equivalent to sinew backing, and though less durable, probably adds more to the cast of the bows.

In our experiments with a catgut and rawhide backing, we have not found that they add materially to the cast of a bow, only insure it against fracture. On the other hand, sap wood and hickory backing materially add to the power of the implement.

The little red yew bow used in the previous experiment was backed heavily with rawhide and catgut. It then weighed ten pounds, but only shot sixty-three yards, showing a decrease in cast. But the backing permitted its being drawn to ten inches, when it shot a distance of eighty-five yards. A draw of twelve inches fractured it across the handle.

In a similar experiment it was shown that two pieces of wood of the same size, but one being of a coarse-grained yew running sixteen lines to the inch, the other a fine-grained piece running thirty-five lines to the inch, the finer grain had the greater strength and resiliency up to the breaking point, but the yellow coarse-grained piece was more flexible and less readily broken.

The question often arises, "How would an arrow fly if the bow is held in a mechanical rest and the string released by a mechanical release?" Such an apparatus would permit of several experiments. It would answer some of the queries that naturally pass through the mind of every archer. Question 1. How accurate is the bow and arrow as a weapon of precision, or as they say in ballistics, "What is the error of dispersion?"

Question 2. What is the angle of declination to the left of the point of aim in the flight of such an arrow?

Question 3. What is the effect of placing the cock feather next the bow?

Question 4. What is the effect of shooting different arrows? How do they group? Would not such a machine give accurate data regarding the flight of new arrows and help in the selection of shafts for target shooting?

Question 5. What effect does the time of holding a bow full drawn have on the flight of an arrow?

Question 6. What is the result of changing the weight of bows when the arrows remain the same?

Therefore, we devised a rest, consisting of a post set firmly in the ground, with a rigid cross arm and a vise-like hand grip. This latter was padded thickly with rubber, so that some resiliency was permitted. The bow was fastened in this mechanical hand by sturdy set screws.

At the other end of the cross arm a hinged block was attached, from which projected two short wooden fingers, serving the exact function of the drawing hand. These were spaced so that the arrow nock fitted between them, and when the string was pulled into position and caught upon these fingers, the bow was drawn 28 inches.

We adopted a system of loading, drawing and releasing on count, so that every shot was delivered with equal time factors.

Answer 1. Using the same arrow each time, with the target set at 60 yards, we found, of course, that the arrow always flies to the left when drawn on the left side of the bow, and that the angle of divergence for a 50 pound bow and a 5 shilling English target arrow was between six and seven degrees. Using a stronger bow this angle was increased,--also that with a weaker arrow the angle was greater,--but six degrees might be designated as the normal declination.

Answer 2. Every rifle expert knows what his gun is capable of, in accuracy, and an archer should know just what to expect of an arrow under the most favorable conditions. We therefore tried shooting the same arrow over the same course with the same release, under these fairly stable conditions: The day was calm. We shot an arrow ten times in succession and all the shots centered in a six inch bull's-eye; that is, none went out of a circle of this diameter. In other words, at sixty yards a bow can shoot arrows with an error of dispersion of no more than six inches. This is surprisingly accurate for a weapon of this sort, when it is considered that the best rifles of today will average between one and a half to three inches dispersion at 100 yards.

Answer 3. Placing the cock feather next the bow diverts the arrow to the left and causes it to drop lower on the target. The group formed by six flights was fairly close and consistent.

Answer 4. Out of nine arrows tested, five consistently made a good close group and four as consistently went out. The "outs," however, were uniform in the direction and distance they took. It would be possible by this machine to select arrows that would make co-incidental patterns. It is obvious, however, that differences in individual arrows are greatly exaggerated by the apparatus, because it was quite apparent by this test that any good archer could group these hits much closer than the machine delivered them.

Answer 5. In our shooting, we universally allotted five seconds for drawing, setting and discharging. However, when this time was increased to fifteen seconds, we found that our groups averaged seven and one-half inches lower. This shows the decided loss of cast incidental to long holding of the bow.

Answer 6. Placing a 65 pound bow in the frame immediately showed increased reactions throughout. The lateral divergence in arrow flight was increased to fifteen degrees and all individual reactions were correspondingly increased. The flight of the individual arrow was less consistent, showing plainly the necessity of a proper relation in weight between the arrow and bow,--a very essential factor in accurate shooting.

In conclusion, it seems to me that the machine naturally exaggerated the errors, for this reason. If the pressure of the arrow against the bow, in passing, amounts to two ounces, the arrow will fly a two ounce equivalent to the left, when the bow is held rigidly. An arrow that exerts four ounces pressure will fly correspondingly a greater distance to the left. But when the bow is held in the hand, there is considerable give to the muscles and the two ounce pressure is compensated for; thus, the arrow tends to fly straight. The four ounce arrow would with the same adjustment hold a correspondingly straighter course.

The vertical error, however, depends more on the weight of the arrow, on the feathering, the holding time, the maintainance of tension, and on the release of the bowstring.

There are many problems in the ballistics of archery that are unsolved, waiting the experiments of modern science. Empirical methods have dictated the art so far. In target equipment and shooting there is a wide field for investigation. Our interests, however, are more those of the hunter, and less those of the physicist.

V

HOW TO MAKE A BOW

Every field archer should make his own tackle. If he cannot make and repair it, he will never shoot very long, because it is in constant need of repair.

Target bows and arrows may be bought in sporting stores, here or in England, but hunting equipment must be made. Moreover, when a man manufactures his bow and arrows, he appreciates them more. But it will take many attempts before even the most mechanically gifted can expect to produce good artillery. After having made more than a hundred yew bows, I still feel that I am a novice. The beginner may expect his first two or three will be failures, but after that he can at least shoot them.

Since there are so many different kinds of bows and all so inferior to the English long-bow, we shall describe this alone.

Yew wood is the greatest bow timber in the world. That was proved thousands of years ago by experience. It is indeed a magic wood!

But yew wood is hard to get and hard to make into a bow once having got it. Nevertheless, I am going to tell you where you can get it and how to work it, and how to make hunting bows just as we use them today, and presumably just as our forefathers used them before us. Later on I shall tell you what substitutes may be used for yew.

The best yew wood in America grows in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, in the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges of northern California. By addressing the Department of Forestry, doubtless one can get in communication with some one who will cut him a stave. Living in California, I cut my own.

A description of yew trees and their location may be had from Sudworth's "Forest Trees of the Pacific Slope," to be obtained from the Government Printing Office at Washington.

My own staves I cut near Branscomb, Mendocino County, and at Grizzly Creek on the Van Duzen River, Humboldt County, California. Splendid staves have been shipped to me from this latter county, coming from the neighborhood of Korbel.

Yew is an evergreen tree with a leaf looking a great deal like that of redwood, hemlock, or fir at a distance. It is found growing in the mountains, down narrow canyons, and along streams. It likes shade, water, and altitude. Its bark is reddish beneath and scaly or fuzzy on the surface. Its limbs stand straight out from the trunk at an acute angle, not drooping as those of the redwood and fir.

The sexes are separate in yew. The female tree has a bright red gelatinous berry in autumn, and the male a minute cone. It is interesting that in bear countries the female trees often have long wounds in the bark, or deep scratches made by the claws of these animals as they climb to get the yew berries. It is also stated by some authorities that the female yew has light yellow wood, is coarser grained, and does not make so good a bow. I have tried to verify this, but so far I have found some of my bear marked female yew to be the better staves.

The best wood is, of course, dark and close grained. This generally exists in trees that have one side decayed. It seems that the rot stains the rest of the wood and nature makes the grain more compact to compensate for the loss of structural strength. It is also apparent that yew grown at high altitudes, over three thousand feet, is superior to lowland yew.

In selecting a tree for a hunting bow, the stave must be at least six feet long, free from limbs, knots, twists, pitch pockets, rot, small sprouting twigs and corrugations. One will look over a hundred trees to find one good bow stave; then he may find a half dozen excellent staves in one tree.

There is no such thing as a perfect piece of yew, nor is there a perfect bow; at least, I have never seen it. But there is a bow in every yew tree if we but know how to get it out. That is the mystery of bowmaking. It takes an artist, not an artisan.

Before one ever fells a tree, he should weigh the moral right to do so. But yew trees are a gift from the gods, and grown only for bows. If you are sure you see one good bow in a tree, cut it. Having felled it and marked with your eye the best stave, cut it again so that your stave is seven feet long. Then split the trunk into halves or quarters with steel or wooden wedges so that your stave is from three to six inches wide. Cut out the heart wood so that the billet is about three inches thick. Be careful not to bruise the bark in any of these operations.

Now put your stave in the shade. If you are compelled to ship it by express, wrap it in burlap or canvas, and preferably saw the ends square and paint them to prevent checking. When you get it home put it in the cellar.

If you must make a bow right away, place the stave in running water for a month, then dry in a shady place for a month, and it is ready for use. It will not be so good as if seasoned three to seven years, but it will shoot; in fact, it will shoot the same day you cut it from the tree, only it will follow the string and not stand straight as it should. Of course, it will not have the cast of air-seasoned wood.

The old authorities say, cut your yew in the winter when the sap is down, or as Barnes, the famous bow-maker of Forest Grove, Oregon, used to say: "Yew cut in the summer contains the seeds of death." But this does not seem to have proved the case in my experience. I am fully convinced that the sap can be washed out and the process of seasoning hastened very materially by proper treatment.

Kiln dried wood is never good as a bow. It is too brash; but after the first month of shade, the staves may be put in a hot attic to their advantage.

In selecting the portion of the tree best suited for a bow, choose that part that when cut will cause the stave to bend backward toward the bark. Since your bow ultimately will bend in the opposite direction, this natural curve tends to form a straighter bow, or as an archer would say "set back a bit in the handle."

If it is impossible to get a stave six feet in length, then a wide stave three and a half feet long may be used. It is necessary in this case to split it and join the two pieces with a fishtail splice in the handle. Target bows are made this way, to advantage, but such a makeshift is to be deprecated in a hunting bow. The variations of temperature and moisture combined with hard usage in hunting demand a solid, single stave. It must not break. Your life may depend upon it.

Before engaging in any art, it is necessary to study the anatomy of your subject. The anatomical points of a bow have a time-honored nomenclature and are as follows: Bows may be single staves, or one-piece bows, those of one continuity and homogeneity; spliced bows consist of two pieces of wood united in the handle; backed bows have an added strip of wood glued on the back; and composite bows are made up of several different substances, such as wood, horn, sinew, and glue.

That surface of the bow which faces the string when drawn into action, that is, the concave arc, is called the belly of the bow. The opposite surface is the back. A bow should never be bent backwards, away from the belly; it will break.

The center of the bow is the handle or hand grip; the extremities are the tips, usually finished with notches cut in the wood or surmounted by horn, bone, sinew, wooden or metal caps called nocks. These are grooved to accommodate the string. The spaces between the nocks and the handle are called the limbs.

A bow that when unstrung bends back past the straight line is termed reflexed. One that continues to bend toward the belly is said to follow the string. A lateral deviation is called a cast in the bow.

The proper length of a yew bow should be the height of the man that shoots it, or a trifle less. Our hunting bows are from five feet six inches to five feet eight inches in length. The weight of a hunting bow should be from fifty to eighty pounds. One should start shooting with a bow not over fifty pounds, and preferably under that. At the end of a season's shooting he can command a bow of sixty pounds if he is a strong man. Our average bows pull seventy-five pounds. Though it is possible for some of us to shoot an eighty-five pound bow, such a weapon is not under proper control for constant use.

Some pieces of yew will make a stronger bow at given dimensions than others. The finer the grain and the greater the specific gravity, the more resilient and active the wood, and stronger the bow.

Taking a yew stave having a dark red color and a layer of white sap wood about a quarter of an inch thick, covered with a thin maroon-colored bark, let us make a bow. Counting the rings in the wood at the upper end of the stave, you will find that they run over forty to the inch.

Ishi insisted that this end of the stave should always be the upper end of the weapon. It seems to me that this extremity having the most compact grain, and the strongest, should constitute the lower limb, because, as we shall see later on, this limb is shorter, bears the greater strain, and is the one that gives down the sooner.

We shall plan to make the bow as strong as is compatible with good shooting, and reduce its strength later to meet our requirements.

Look over the stave and estimate whether it is capable of yielding two bows instead of one. If it be over three inches wide, and straight throughout, then rip it down the center with a saw. Place one stave in a bench vise and carefully clean off the bark with a draw knife. Do not cut the sap wood in this process.

Cut your stave to six feet in length. Sight down it and see how the plane of the back twists. If it is fairly consistent, draw a straight line down the center of the sap wood. This is the back of your bow. Now draw on the back an outline which has a width of an inch and a quarter extending for a distance of a foot above and a foot below the center. Let this outline taper in a gentle curve to the extremities of the bow, where it has a width of three-quarters of an inch. This will serve as a rough working plan and is sufficiently large to insure that you will get a strong weapon.

With the draw knife, and later a jack plane, cut the lateral surfaces down to this outline. The back must stand a tremendous tensile strain and the grain of the wood should not be injured in any way. But you may smooth it off very judiciously with a spoke shave, and later with a file. The transverse contour of this part of the bow remains as it was in the tree, a long flat arc.

Shift the stave in the vise so that the sap wood is downward, and set it so that the average plane of the sap is level. With the raw knife shave the wood very carefully, avoiding cutting too deeply or splitting off fragments, until the bow assumes the thickness of one and one-quarter inches in the center and this decreases as it approaches the tips, where it is half an inch thick.

The shape of a cross-section of the belly of the bow should be a full Roman arch. Many debates have centered on the shape of this part of the weapon. Some contend for a high-crested contour, or Gothic arch, what is termed "stacking a bow"; some have chosen a very flat curve as the best. The former makes for a quick, lively cast and may be desirable in a target implement, but it is liable to fracture; the latter makes a soft, pleasant, durable bow, but one that follows the string. Choose the happy medium.

The process of shaping the belly is the most delicate and requires more skill than all the rest. In the first place you must follow the grain of the wood. If the back twists and undulates, your cut must do the same. The feather of the grain must never be reversed, but descend by perfect gradation from handle to tip.

Where a knot or pin occurs in the wood, here you must leave more substance because this is a weak spot. If the pin be large and you cannot avoid it, then it is best to drill it out carefully and fill the cavity with a solid piece of hard wood set in with glue. A pin crumbles while an inserted piece will stand the strain. If such a "Dutchman" be not too large nor too near the center of either limb, it will not materially jeopardize the bow. If, in your shaving, you come across a sharp dip in' the grain, such that will make a decided concavity, here leave a few more layers of grain than you would were the contour even; for a concave structure cannot stand strain as well as a straight one; the leverage is increased unduly.

The following measurements, with a caliper, are those of my favorite hunting bow, called "Old Horrible," and with which I've slain many a beast. The width just above the handle is 1-1/4 by 1-1/8 inches thick. Six inches up the limb the width is 1-1/4, thickness 11-1/16.

Twelve inches above the handle it is a trifle less than 1-1/4 wide by 1 inch thick. Eighteen inches above the handle it is 1-1/8 wide by 7/8 thick. Twenty-four inches above it is 15/16 wide by 3/4 thick. Thirty inches above it is 11/16 by 9/16 thick. At the nock it is practically 1/2 by 1/2 inches.

Having got the bow down to rough proportions, the next thing is to cut two temporary nocks on it, very near the ends. These consist in lateral cuts having a depth of an eighth of an inch and are best made with a rat tail file.

Now you can string your bow and test its curve.

Of course, you must have a string, and usually that employed in these early tests is very strong and roughly made of nearly ninety strands of Barbour's linen, No. 12. Directions for making strings will be given later on.

It is difficult to brace a new heavy bow and one will require assistance. In the absence of help he can place it in the vise, one of those revolving on a pivot, and having the string properly adjusted on the lower limb, pull on the upper end in such a way that the other presses against the wall or a stationary brace, thus bending the bow while you slip the expectant loop over the open nock. Or you can have an assistant pull on the upper nock, while you brace the bow yourself.

In ancient times, at this stage, the bow was tillered, or tested for its curve, or, as Sir Roger Ascham says, "brought round compass," which means to make it bend in a perfect arc when full drawn.

The tiller is a piece of board three feet long, two inches wide, and one inch thick, having a V-shaped notch at the lower end to fit on the handle and small notches on its side two inches apart, for a distance of twenty-eight inches. These are to hold the string.

Lay the braced bow on the floor, place the end of the tiller on the handle while you steady the tiller upright. Then put your foot on the bow next the tiller and draw the string up until it slips in the first notch, say twelve inches from the handle. If the curve of the bow is fairly symmetrical, draw the string a few inches more. If again it describes a perfect arc raise the string still farther. A perfect arc for a bow should be a trifle flat at the center. If, on the other hand, one limb or a part of it does not bend as it should, this must be reduced carefully by shaving it for a space of several inches over the spot and the bow tested again.

Proceeding very cautiously, at the same time not keeping the bow full drawn more than a second or two at a time, you ultimately get the two limbs so that they bend nearly the same and the general distribution of the curve is equal throughout.

As a matter of fact, a great deal of experience is needed here. By marking a correct form on the floor with chalk, a novice may fit his bow to this outline.

The perfect weapon is a trifle stiff at the center and the lower limb a shade stronger than the upper.

The real shooting center, the place where the arrow passes, is actually one and one-quarter inches above the geographic center, and the hand consequently is below this point. Your finished hand grip, being four inches long, will be one and a quarter inches above the center and two and three-quarters below the center. This makes the lower limb comparatively shorter, so it must be relatively stronger. Your bow, therefore, when full drawn should be symmetrical, but when simply braced, the bend of the upper limb is perceptibly greater than the stronger lower limb.

You will find the bow we have made will pull over eighty pounds, even after it is thoroughly broken to the string. It is necessary, therefore, to reduce it further. This is done with a spoke shave, a very small hand plane or a file. Ultimately I use a pocket knife as a scraper, and sandpaper and steelwool to finish it.

Your effort must be to get every part of the wood to do its work, for every inch is under utmost strain, and one part doing more than the rest must ultimately break down, sustain a compression fracture, or, as an archer would say, "chrysal or fret."

"A bow full drawn is seven-eighths broken," said old Thomas Waring, the English bowmaker, and he was right. Draw your bow three inches more than the standard cloth yard of twenty-eight inches and you break it. It is more accurate to say that a full drawn bow is nine-tenths broken.

It is also essential that the bow be stiff in the handle so that it will be rigid in shooting and not jar or kick, which one weak at this point invariably does.

A bow should be light at the tips, say the last eight inches, which is accomplished by rounding the back slightly and reducing the width at this point. This gives an active recoil, or as it is described, "whip ended." This can be overdone, especially in hunting-bows, where a little more solidity and safety are preferable to a brilliant cast.

And so you must work and test your bow, and shoot it, and draw it up before a full length mirror and observe its outline, and get your friends to draw it up and pass judgment on it. In fact, while the actual work of making a bow takes about eight hours, it requires months to get one adjusted so that it is good. A bow, like a violin, is a work of art. The best in it can only be brought out by infinite care. Like a violin, it is all curved contours, there is not a straight line in it. Many of my bows have been built over completely three or four times. Old Horrible first pulled eighty-five pounds. It was reduced, shortened, whip ended, and worked over again and again so to tune the wood that all parts acted in harmony. Every good bow is a work of love.

Your bow is now ready to shoot, but let us weigh it first. Brace it and put it horizontally in the vise with the string facing you. Take a spring scale registering at least eighty pounds and catch the hook under the string. Draw it until the yardstick registers twenty-eight inches from the string to the back of the bow. Now read the scale; that is its weight.

As a matter of convenience I have devised a stick that facilitates the weighing. I take a dowel and attach to one end by glue and binding a bent piece of iron so fashioned that the extremity serves as a hook to draw the string and the bent portion permits the attachment of the scale. The dowel is marked off in inches so that one can test different lengths of draw. With the bow in the bench vise, this measure hooked on the string and resting on the bow at the arrow plate, the scale is hooked in place, the dowel drawn down to the standard length and the registered weight read off on the scale.

If you still find that your bow is too strong for you, it must be further reduced. Begin all over again with the spoke shave and the file, trying to correct any inequalities that may have existed before and reducing it to what ultimately will be sixty-five pounds. Put on the string and weigh it again and again until you get the weight you want. If you have reduced it too much, cut it down two or four inches; it will be stronger and shoot better.

All yew bows tend to lose in strength after much use, and your new one should pull five pounds more than the required weight. If a bow is put away in a dry, warm place for several years it nearly always increases in strength. In our experience one in constant use lasts from three to five years. The longer the bow, the longer its life. Some, of course, break or come to grief after a short period, others live to honorable old age. Yew bows are in existence today that were made many thousands of years ago, but, of course, they would break if shot. Many bows over one hundred years old are still in use occasionally. I have estimated that the average life of a good bow should exceed one hundred thousand shots, after which time it begins to fret and show other signs of weakness.

Keeping in mind the idea of making your weapon as beautiful, as symmetrical and resilient as possible, free from dead or overstrained areas, work it down with utmost solicitude until it approaches your ideal. Smooth it with sandpaper; finish it with steelwool.

Now comes the process of putting on the nocks. A bow shoots well without them, but is safer with them.

From time immemorial, horn tips have been put on the ends of the limbs to hold the string. We have used rawhide, hardwood, aluminum, bone, elk horn, deer horn, buffalo horn, paper fiber or composition, and cow's horn. The last seems best of all. From your butcher secure a number of horns. With a saw cut off three or four inches of the tip. Place one in a vise and drill a conical hole in it an inch and a quarter deep and half an inch wide. This can be done by using a half-inch drill which has been ground on a carborundum stone to a conical point the proper length. In this hole set a stout piece of wood with glue. This permits you to hold the horn in the vise while you work it.

After the glue has set, take a coarse file and shape the horn nock to the classical shape, which is hard to describe but easy to illustrate. It must have diagonal grooves to hold the string. The nock for the upper limb has also a hole at its extremity to receive the buckskin thong which keeps the upper loop of the string from slipping too far down the bow when unbraced.

The nocks for hunting bows should be short and stout, not over one and a half inches long, for they get a lot of hard usage in their travels. They should also be broader and thicker than those used on target bows.

Two nocks having been roughly finished, they are loosened from their wooden handles by being soaked in boiling water, and are ready for use. Cut the ends of the bow to fit the nocks in such a way that they tip slightly backward when in place, but do not attach them yet.

At this point we back the bow with rawhide. Ordinarily a yew bow properly protected by sapwood requires no backing; but having had many bows break in our hands, we at last took the advice of Ishi and backed them. Since then no bow legitimately used has broken.

The rawhide utilized for this purpose is known to tanners as clarified calfskin. Its principal use is in the manufacture of artificial limbs, drum heads and parchment. Its thickness is not much more than that of writing paper.

Having secured two pieces about three feet in length and two inches wide, soak them in warm water for an hour.

While this is being done, slightly roughen the back of your bow with a file. Place it in the vise and size the back with thin, hot carpenter's glue. When the hide is soft, lay the pieces smooth side down on a board and wipe off the excess water. Quickly size them with hot glue, remove the excess with your finger, turn the pieces over and apply them to the bow. Overlap them at the hand grip for a distance of two or three inches. Smooth them out toward the tips by stroking and expressing all air bubbles and excess glue. Wrap the handle roughly with string to keep the strips from slipping; also bind the tips for a short distance to secure them in place. Remove the bow from the vise and bandage it carefully from tip to tip with a gauze surgical bandage. Set it aside to dry over night. When dry, remove the bandage and string binding, cut off the overlapping edges of the hide and scrape it smooth. Having got it to the required finish, size the exterior again with very thin glue, and it is ready for the final stage.

The tips of the bow having been cut to a conical point and the nocks fitted prior to the backing process the horn nocks are now set on with glue; the ordinary liquid variety will do.

Glue a thin strip of wood on the back of the bow to round out the handle. This should be about one-eighth of an inch thick, one inch wide and three inches long and rounded at the edges.

Bind the center of your bow with heavy fish line to make the handgrip, carefully overlapping the start and finish. A little liquid glue or shellac can be placed on the wood to fix the serving. Some prefer leather or pigskin for a handgrip, but a cord binding keeps the hand from sweating and has an honest feel.

The handle occupies a space of four inches with one and a quarter inches above the center and two and three-quarters below it. Finish off the edges of the cord binding with a band of thin leather half an inch wide. This should be soaked in water, beveled at the edge, sized with glue, put around the bow, and overlapped at the back. I also glue a small piece of leather on the left-hand side of the bow above the handle to prevent the arrow chafing the wood at this spot. This is called the arrow plate and usually is made of mother-of-pearl or bone; leather is better. These finishing pieces are wrapped temporarily with string until they dry.

The bow is then given a final treatment with scraper and steelwool and is ready for the varnish.

The best protection for bows seems to be spar varnish. This keeps out moisture. It has two disadvantages, however; it cracks after much bending, and it is too shiny. The glint or flash of a hunting bow will frighten game. I have often seen rabbits or deer stand until the bow goes off, then jump in time to escape the arrow. At first we believed they saw the arrow; later we found that they saw the flash. Bows really should be painted a dull green or drab color. But we love to see the natural grain of the wood.

The finish I prefer is first of all to give a coat of shellac to the backing, leather trimmings and cord handle. After it is dry, give the wood a good soaking with boiled linseed oil. Using the same oiled cloth place in its center a small wad of cotton saturated with an alcoholic solution of shellac. Rub this quickly over the bow. By repeated oiling and shellacking one produces a French polish that is very durable and elastic.

Permit this to dry and after several days rub the whole weapon with floor wax, giving a final polish with a woolen cloth.

When on a hunt one should carry a small quantity of linseed oil and anoint his bow every day or so with it. Personally I add one part of light cedar oil to two parts of linseed. The fragrance of the former adds to the pleasure of using the latter.

When not in use hang your bow on a peg or nail slipped beneath the upper loop of the string; do not stand it in a corner, this tends to bend the lower limb. Keep it in a warm, dry room; preserve it from bruises and scratches. Wax it and the string often. Care for it as you would a friend; it is your companion in arms.