SIR GEORGE DARWIN 177 



I am indebted to Mr. H. Sherlock, who often 

 shot with him at Cambridge, for his impressions. 

 He writes : "I shot a good deal with your brother 

 the year before his death ; he was very keen on the 

 sport, methodical and painstaking, and paid great 

 attention to style, and as he had a good natural 

 'loose,' which is verj'- difficult to acquire, there is 

 little doubt (not\\'ithstanding that he came to 

 archery rather late in life) that had he lived he 

 would have been above the average of the men who 

 shoot fairly regularly at the public meetings." 

 After my brother's death Mr. Sherlock was good 

 enough to look at George's archery note-book. 

 "I then saw," he writes, "that he had analysed 

 them in a way which, so far as I am aware, had 

 never been done before." Mr. Sherlock has given 

 examples of the method in a s^mipathetic obituary 

 published(p. 273)in The Archer's Register.^ George's 

 point was that the traditional method of scoring is 

 not fair in regard to the areas of the coloured rings 

 of the target. Mr. Sherlock records in his Notice 

 that George joined the Royal Toxophilite Society 

 in 191 2, and occasionally shot in the Regent's Park. 

 In 1912 he won the Norton Cup and Medal (144 

 arrows at 120 yards.) 



There was a bilHard table at Down, and George 

 learned to play fairly well, though he had no pre- 

 tension to real proficiency. He used to play at the 

 Athenaeum, and in 191 1 we find him playing there 

 in the Billiard Handicap, but a week later he 

 records in his diary that he was "knocked out." 



* The Archer's Register for 1912-1913, by H. Walrond. London, 

 The Field Ofi&ce, 191 3. 



