extended his hand, "take care what you are doing; always take your bow by the handle, either when you are about to string it, or to take your aim. This is called the handle, this portion towards the centre of the bow, about five inches in length; grasp it in your left hand, letting the top of the handle be level with the top of your hand; hold the arm out quite straight, turning your wrist in as much as possible. Let no portion of the front of your person, excepting your face, be turned towards the mark; allow your head to incline a little downward over the breast, let your heels be about six or seven inches apart, and hold your bow quite perpendicularly; that's well!"

"But, Sir," said Lucy Warden, "if William hold his wrist in that way, I should think the string of the bow would hit him a sharp blow on the arm when it twangs off."

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'Very true, my dear," answered he; "it would; and that is the reason I wear this piece of smooth, stout leather buckled round my left arm; it is called a brace.

K

130

HANDLING THE BOW.

I'll get one for William, and also a shooting glove like this one you see, which consists of three finger-stalls of leather, about twice the length of your thimble, to protect the fingers of the right hand, with which the string is drawn, so that he shall be properly equipped the next time he and I have a bout of archery together. When you take aim," said Humphrey Willy, turning again towards William, "bring your arrow up towards your ear, and not to

your eye, as you may perhaps fancy you ought to do; and don't look along your arrow, but directly at the mark, which should be visible to you just a little on the left of your knuckles. Take hold of your arrow by the middle, and place it under the string and over the bow, against which you hold it, by throwing the forefinger of left hand over the pile or

your

head of the arrow; then drawing your right hand back to its other end, or nock, as it is called, you look for the cockfeather; this found, you let the arrow, held between your finger and thumb, slide down the bow, and you fix it, with the feather upwards, on that part of the string which is exactly opposite the top of the handle."

"What is the cock-feather?" asked William.

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Every arrow has three feathers," answered Humphrey Willy; "you see this arrow is inlaid at the nock with horn, on which piece of horn the cock-feather is placed; the other two feathers are placed at an equal distance from it." "What bird's feathers are used for them?" enquired William.

"Generally either goose or turkey wing-feathers," answered Humphrey Willy, "and they are frequently two of one colour, and the third of another, so that the odd colour shall the more readily indicate the feather that should be uppermost."

"Swan feathers are also mentioned for arrows in the old version of the ballad of Chevy Chase," said Mr. Singleton, "and Chaucer tells us that his yeoman bore a shefe of peacock arrows bright and kene;' but what is the usual length of an arrow, Sir ?" asked he of Humphrey Willy.

"They vary in length, Sir," returned neighbour Willy, 66 'according to that of the bow; for a bow of five foot long, twenty-four inches in length, and for above five-foot-nine bows the arrows are sometimes as many as thirty inches in length; but such long arrows are apt to risk the breaking of the bow. I therefore hold twenty-eight inches to be a good length for an arrow."

"We hear a great deal about the old English archers drawing a 'cloth-yard' arrow. What say you to that feat, Humphrey?" asked Mr. Warden.

"I suspect," answered neighbour Willy, "that it was no such great feat after all, if it be as I believe, that the 'cloth-yard' meant a Flemish ell, which measures twentyseven inches, and not the English yard, thirty-six inches."

“That is very likely," said Mr. Warden; "for the finer cloths being at that time imported from Flanders, it is probable they were measured by the yard or ell measure of their own country; particularly as it is especially designated a cloth yard.''

"If this be true, we need not so much envy the superior dexterity of our ancestors, though we must own they surpassed us in the widely-spread cultivation of this noble

exercise," said Humphrey Willy, with a half-sigh; "but," added he, collecting his bow and arrows carefully, "I will join you in your walk, if you will permit me, as I was coming to your house according to invitation. By the bye, the bow and arrows and archery equipments that I intend for you, William, will make a very good birth-day present, and I hope you'll accept them, with my best wishes for many happy returns of the day."

William joyfully thanked him, and they proceeded on their walk.

"There is a remarkable feat said to be occasionally performed among the North American Indians," said Humphrey Willy, "that of shooting an arrow straight up in the air, and then sending a second after it so instantaneously, and with such proportionately additional speed, as to overtake and split the first one. There is also a curious mode practised by the Japanese, of propelling arrows through a tube, by forcibly blowing them forth with their breath."

"Have you ever witnessed any of those extraordinary feats which we are told the Americans achieved with the rifle, Sir ?" enquired Mr. Singleton.

"A great many admirable marksmen I have beheld among them, Sir," returned Mr. Willy, "who have performed some very skilful exploits with the rifle; but some of the deeds we occasionally hear recounted are not merely wonderful, but so utterly beyond the range of human power, that they belie themselves."

"That is an ingenious method of theirs in squirrelshooting," said Mr. Warden, "their aiming at the branch on which the animal is seated, so that the blow of the shattered bark may kill it, and leave the skin of the squirrel uninjured by a single shot-hole.”

"Bnt such sport as that must seem trivial indeed to you, Humphrey, who have witnessed a royal tiger-hunt, with the glaring eyes and yellow fur couching in the jungle; who have joined in the excitement of an attack on an infuriated elephant, and who have awaited the formidable approach of the rhinoceros, stamping and crashing through the underwood."

"It is curious to notice the almost peculiar national tendency of the English towards sport for mere sport's sake," said Humphrey Willy; "the native destroys these wild beasts as a matter of safety, and to protect his family and property from their nocturnal visitation; but the Englishman enjoys the sheer delight and excitement of the chase itself, and derives sufficient stimulus from it without seeking other motive. Of course, the bagging a certain number of birds is a pleasant addition to the animated enjoyment of a day's sporting here; but I remember a singular instance of the utter inability to comprehend this national enthusiasm for 'sport,' as it is emphatically called, when a Neapolitan nobleman once said to me, 'It strikes me as very strange that a nation so confessedly ingenious and clever, and rich too, as you English are, should yet never have hit upon a better method of killing your hares and pheasants and game, than by going tiring yourselves out walking after them for a whole day with a dog and a gun; or have invented a less expensive plan than a large train of men, and horses, and hounds, only to catch one miserable fox, which, after all, is not even good to eat!"

"Something like the Chinese Mandarin," said Lucy England, "who, on being taken to an English ball, asked why the ladies and gentlemen didn't order up the servants to do all this dancing for them.”