874 Bow- Shooting. 



and Illinois, teem with wood-duck in their season, which is from the 

 first of September to about the tenth of November, when they fly 

 south. These small streams mostly flow through a wooded country, 

 between low bluffs fringed with papaw and hazel thickets, and over- 

 shadowed by giant oak and plane trees. Acorns are constantly 

 dropping into the clear water, giving the ducks all the food they 

 desire ; but should this source chance to fail, the wheat-stacks and 

 corn-shocks of the farmer are hard by, and to them they make daily 

 excursions. Under cover of the bluffs or the hazel and papaw thick- 

 ets, the archer has easy work approaching his birds, and generally 

 gets within short range of them before he shoots. If you can keep 

 the shot-gunners away, three or four miles of a well stocked stream 

 will afford two archers plenty of sport for a whole season. Hunting 

 them with the bow does not drive the birds off to other haunts ; but 

 the sound of a gun soon depopulates a stream, whether any duck be 

 killed or not. The little rivulet I am now hunting along is so 

 shallow that I can wade it at any point, and its average width is not 

 over fifteen yards. No gunners have been on it this season — i. e., 

 within a mile or two of my cabin, each way. The ducks are plenti- 

 fully distributed along my beat, and seem very fat. I am having 

 grand luck. 



Yesterday, I found an old, dead, scraggy plane-tree, so full of 

 knot-holes and deserted woodpecker holes that it looked like a dry 

 honey-comb, and it was literally crammed with flying squirrels. I 

 spent an hour pounding on the old shell and shooting at the little 

 animals when they came out of the holes. Anything that flies, 

 swims, climbs, or runs is game for the archer. He shoots at 

 everything, from a tomtit to a hawk or an eagle, from a flying- 

 squirrel or ground-squirrel to a deer. He is out for sport, and means 

 to have it. 



To close this paper, a few plain rules for bow-shooting will be of 

 value to those who may be tempted to try it. 



The first thing is to secure good weapons. A poor bow and 

 slipshod arrows are worse than none. 



For target practice, a fifty-pound lemon-wood bow, six feet long, 

 and best-footed Highfield arrows, twenty-eight inches long, are what 

 is needed. A hunting-bow should be ten or fifteen pounds heavier. 



