•ffn tbc Moobs wftb tbe Bow 



one by one ; and the mountain air fans me, 

 the incipient greenery curtains me about, 

 the fragrance has not weakened, the bird- 

 song is as wild and free as ever. 



There is a part of sylvan archery which 

 defies description, — a part almost equal to 

 the whole, in fact, — and just there lies the 

 subtle charm. To shoot a bow, or " in a 

 bow," as the old writers have it, demands 

 next thing to impossibility; you are re- 

 quired to do with absolute exactitude 

 twenty things at once, if the shot is to be 

 good and true ; and yet you so frequently 

 approach this perfection that your failures, 

 which are legion, count not at all. In my 

 recorded scores afield there are sometimes 

 thirty misses set down against one hit ; yet 

 here and there appears an entry like this : 

 " Crept three hundred yards, sneaking from 

 cover to cover, to get a shot at a hen- 

 hawk. Finally had to take an almost 

 hopeless chance. Hit him just as he 

 lifted his wings to fly. Eighty paces to 

 the root of the tree, where he fell from a 

 bough sixty feet above." But some of the 

 misses, and here I cannot explain, are set 

 224 



