are too strong for them. In fact, there are but few to whom, at one or other period of their archery career, this remark has not applied. The desire to be considered strong appears to be the moving agent to this curious hallucination; as if a man did not rather expose his weakness by straining at a bow evidently beyond his strength, thereby calling attention to that weakness, than by using a lighter one with grace and ease, which always give the idea of force, vigour, and power. Another incentive to the use of strong bows is the passion for sending down the arrows sharp and low, and the consequent employment of powerful bows to accomplish this; the which is perhaps a greater mistake than the other, for it is not so much the strength of the bow as the perfect command of it that enables the archer to obtain this desideratum. The question is not so much what a man can pull as what he can loose; and he will without doubt obtain a lower flight of arrow by a lighter power of bow under his command, than he will by a stronger one beyond his proper management. This mania for strong bows has destroyed many a promising archer, in an archery sense of the term. Not only did one of the best shots of his day, a winner of the second and first prizes at successive Grand National Meetings, dwindle beneath mediocrity in accuracy through this infatuation, but another brought himself to death's door by a dangerous illness of about a year's duration, by injury to his physical powers, brought on by the same failing, only carried to a much greater excess. And, after all, the thing so desired is not always thus attained.

Let the reader attend any Grand National Archery Meeting, and let him observe some fifty or so picked shots of the country arranged at the targets, and contending with all their might for the prizes of honour and skill. Whose arrows fly down the sharpest, steadiest, and keenest? Are they those of the archers who use the strongest bows? Not at all. Behold that archer from an Eastern county just stepping so unpretendingly forward to deliver his shafts. See! with what grace and ease the whole thing is done!—no straining, no contortions there! Mark the flight of his arrows—how keen, and low, and to the mark they fly! None fly sharper, few so sharp. And what is the strength of that beautiful self-yew bow which he holds in his hand? Scarce 50 lbs.! And yet the pace of his shaft is unsurpassed by any; and it is close upon five shillings in weight too. There is another. Mark his strength and muscular power! Possibly a bow of 80 lbs. would be within his pull; yet he knows better than to use any such, when the prizes are awarded to skill, not brute force. The bow he employs is but 48 lbs.; yet how steady and true is the flight of his arrow! And so on all through the meeting: it will be found that it is not the strongest bows, but those that are under the perfect command of their owners, that do their work the best.

Inasmuch, then, as the proper flight of an arrow from any bow depends almost entirely upon the way in which it is loosed, the strength of the bow must not be regulated by the mere muscular powers of the individual archer; for he may be able to draw even a 29-inch arrow to the head in a very powerful bow without being able during a match to loose steadily a bow of more than 50 lbs. Not the power of drawing, but of loosing steadily, must therefore be the guide here. The bow must be within this loosing power, but also well up to it; for it is almost as bad to be under- as over-bowed. The evils attendant upon being over-bowed are various: the left (bow) arm, wrist, and elbow, the fingers of the right (loosing) hand and its wrist, are strained and rendered unsteady; the pull becomes uncertain and wavering, and is never twice alike; the whole system is overworked and wearied; and, besides this, the mind is depressed by ill-success; the entire result is disappointment and failure. On the other hand, care must be taken not to fall into the opposite extreme of being under-bowed, as in this case the loose becomes difficult, and generally unsteady and unequal. The weight of the bows now in general use varies from 45 lbs. to 54 lbs., stronger ones forming the exception; and the lowest of these weights is ample for the distances now usually shot. Each archer must therefore find out how much he can draw with ease and loose with steadiness throughout a day's shooting, and choose accordingly. If a beginner, 50 lbs. is probably the outside weight with which he should commence; a few pounds less, in most cases, would even be better for the starting-point. As lately as twenty years ago bows were very carelessly marked in the indication of their strength, many bows being marked as much as 10 lbs. above their actual measure; but in the present day all the bowmakers incline towards the custom of marking a new bow to weigh rather less, perhaps by 3 lbs., than its actual weight. The reason of this is that in the opinion of the marker the bow will arrive at the strength marked in the course of use. It is indeed a very rare case when a new bow does not with use get somewhat weaker.

Besides keeping the bows for his own use mostly of the same description, every archer should also keep them of just about the same weight; and if he shoot much he should possess at the fewest three, as much alike as possible, and use them alternately. This will prove an economy in the end, as each will have time to recover its elasticity, and will thus last a much longer time. It is an agreeable feature in bows that they have considerable facility in recovery from the effects of hard work. This fact may be easily tested by weighing a bow on a steelyard before and after shooting a single York round with it, when a difference of one pound or more will be found in the strength of it, more particularly if the day be hot; but with a few days' rest this lost power will be regained by the bow.

In the choice of a bow a beginner should secure the assistance of an experienced friend, or content himself with an unambitious investment in a cheap specimen of backed-bow or a self-lance, on which he may safely expend his inexperience. When an archer is sufficiently advanced to know the sort and weight of bow that best suits him, let him go to the maker he prefers, and name the price he can afford to give—the prices of trustworthy self-yews vary from twenty to five guineas, of yew-backed yews from five to three guineas, and of other backed bows from three guineas to thirty shillings; whilst self-lance bows may be procured for as little as twelve shillings—and he will soon find what choice there is for him. If there appears one likely to suit, let him first examine the bow to see that there be no knots, curls, pins, splinters, chrysals, or other objectionable flaws; then let him string it, and, placing the lower end on the ground in such a position that the whole of the string shall be under his eye and uppermost, let him notice whether the bow be perfectly straight. If it be so, the bow, so balanced between the ground at the lower and a finger at the upper end, will appear symmetrically divided by the string into two parts. Should there appear to be more on one side of the string than on the other in either limb, the bow is not straight, and should be rejected. A bow is said to have a cast when it is tilted in its back out of the perpendicular to the plane passing through the string and the longitudinal centre of the bow. Any bow that has this fault should also be rejected. This fault, if it should happen to exist, will be easily detected by reversing the position of the bow just previously described, i.e. by holding the bow as before, but with the back upwards. The next step is to watch