532 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Oct. 25, 1913. 
of the right angled triangle, whose base is the 
arrow, and whose perpendicular starts from the 
knock and intercepts the hypothenuse formed by 
the line from the eye to the point of the arrow, 
anl the whole in its lateral and perpendicular re¬ 
lation to the target. 
First—We know how absolutely necessary 
it is to repeated success to always have the 
same length of pull at the exact moment the 
arrow is loosened—whether individualized by a 
snappy pull or not. This fixes the length of 
the base of our hypothetical triangle. Second— 
We know how necessary tO' repeated success it 
is to always bring the knock hand to exactly the 
same position in relation to the eye and line of 
aim, thus fixing the length of our perpendicular. 
(The methods for accomplishing this I will refer 
to later). Third—We know how necessary it is 
to repeated high scores, to always have the 
point of the arrow for each frame of every 
round, at the same perpendicular distance from 
the line from the eye to the gold at the exact 
fraction of the second of loosening. 
The latter position is acquired by a variety 
of individual conscious or unconscious ex¬ 
pedients. With some it may be the sensitive 
instinctive irresistible impulse to loosen the 
arrow at the supreme moment, when the arrow 
reaches tohe right poise. With others who are 
not confined to a definite point of aim, it is the 
ability to gauge with repeated exactness the de¬ 
sired length of the perpendicular from the 
point of the arrow to the center of the gold. 
I know a skillful archer who holds his 
thumb in an upright position against his bow 
for a sighting point to the gold; others, for the 
same purpose, mark the bow with windings, etc. 
The large majority of archers, however, are de¬ 
pendent upon a definite point of aim, which 
they strive to obtain in some naturally located 
object, and which modern archery has openly 
accepted as one of the legitimate factors to the 
great art and science of shooting the long bow, 
but which, in a hyperesthetic sense, has no more 
right to be there, according to every rule of 
sport, than other mechanical expedients which 
detract from those highest conceptions of true 
archery that have been guarded with such 
sacredness. What would be thought of it in 
those legendary days of unknown, distances to 
the object; or in these days of hunting with the 
bow which many love to follow, and which 
doubtless comes nearest to the highest type of 
true archery. In this hunting archery, the eyes 
of the hunter must be steadily concentrated 
upon the game at all kinds of distances, and 
with every factor of their quick movements 
guided mainly by subconscious, instinctiveness, 
before which all our lauded art and science of 
range shooting dwindles into almost pure me¬ 
chanics. 
Moreover, in our range archery, the ac¬ 
cepted right to localize a natural point of aim 
is fraught with difficulties and uncertainkiis 
which depend largely upon luck, whose benefits 
are so unevenly and unfairly distributed at 
times that frequently the otherwise successful 
archer is placed at a decided disadvantage. 
Even when one’s eyes enables him in the 
shorter rounds to pick out a tiny blade of grass, 
or clover-top, it is rarely in exactly the proper 
position, and even then is subject .to oblitera¬ 
tion in tramping back and forth for the arrows; 
and if destroyed, the casting about for another 
natural point of aim may lead to- enough trial 
errors to ruin his score. The irritating part of 
it, too, and one which tends most to detract 
from his natural skill, is the knowledge that his 
companion archers, who would be no more suc¬ 
cessful that himself under conditions, are mak¬ 
ing larger scores, simply because they are not 
subjected to the same beastly luck, in securing 
their points. 
An instance which occurred in the last Na¬ 
tional tournament nicely illustrates the absurdity 
of our sensitive discrimination between the 
natural and the artificial points of aim. A top- 
notcher, shooting at one of the targets, found 
a distinct blade of grass or leaf that was ex¬ 
actly suited to his point of aim, which he re¬ 
peatedly and openly warned his companions to 
keep off from. But I venture to say, had it been 
accidentally destroyed, or pushed aside, he would 
rather have suffered defeat than openly replace 
it, or even shove it with his foot a little nearer 
to place, because he would feel that the eyes of 
the highbrows were upon him, relegating him 
to the eternal bow-wows of archery. And yet 
he had no more legitimate right, according to 
every rule of honorable sport, to guard that 
blade of grass, in the way he did, than he would 
to place and guard an artificial point of aim. 
One of the most irrevocable laws, written 
or unwritten, in all forms of legitimate sport is 
that which gives, “or is intended to give,” an 
equal chance .to every competitor to truly show 
“the stuff that is in him,” and to remove as far 
as possible the element of luck. 
The only way this can be accomplished in 
regard to the “poirit of aim” is to make an 
official ruling that it will in the future be quite 
as legitimate to place an artificial point of aim 
on the ground (regulated as to size, etc.) as it 
is to resort to other mechanical expedients to 
improve one's aim. 
At the last National meeting, I obtained 
permission of the officers to place a point of 
aim in the 40 and 50-yard frames of the Amer¬ 
ican round. Only one other archer availed him¬ 
self of this expedient. I couldn’t help feeling, 
however, that I was taking an advantage that 
many disapproved of as beneath true archery, 
because it had not been officially accepted as a 
legitimate part of the game, as is the natural 
point of aim. 
Now a word in regard to methods for the 
repeated duplication of the position of the hand 
or knock of the arrow in its relation to the eye, 
and which, good archers will agree, should al¬ 
ways be in perfect harmony with other factors 
of the combination of movements which results 
in record-breaking scores. 
There is no doubt that many archers 
through long practice acquire the same sub¬ 
conscious activities of accuracy in this part if 
the act of shooting that guides the hands of 
skilled musicians, who, should they have a 
single flash of conscious thought intended to 1 
more exactly direct a certain movement of the 
fingers, they would be very liable to make an 
error, or a slight interruption in the time of 
the music, because of the detraction required 
for the brain to again think out the physical 
detail as in the beginning. Most archers, how¬ 
ever, touch some definite point with the hand, 
the fingers or the thumb—which they strive to 
exactly duplicate, and which in time no doubt 
tends toward subconscious duplication. But 
until the habit is fully formed to exactly dupli¬ 
cate the position of the movement, as perhaps 
is true of Will Thompson, Homer Taylor, and 
others, the exactness of the position is very un¬ 
certain, because it is dependent moae or less 
upon slightly movable points of contact. 
In my own strife to accomplish this most 
desirable object, I first devised a small metal 
frame which was held in the palm of the hand 
by a ring about the digital finger, for the pur¬ 
pose of exactly locating the hight of the knuckle 
of the thumb with which I strove to touch a 
certain point upon the jaw at the moment of 
loosening the arrow. But I never arrived at 
any degree of success worth mentioning until 1 
accidentally discovered recently a more exact 
mechanical method, which, though it places me 
in the estimation of many without the pale of 
true archery, it is in my own estimation a far 
more scientific accessory than casting about in 
the shoals of uncertainties. It enabled me, al¬ 
most at once, to produce a comparative even¬ 
ness of my scores, and caused them to jump to 
almost double their former average. 
This is the story: In an endeavor, in the 
shorter frames, to get my point of aim as near as 
possible to the target by raising the knock hand 
to a higher position in relation to my eye, I 
found that the upper border of the winding of 
my string would come occasionally into the 
line of my vision, and when this was repeated 
a few times, it occurred to me that this was a 
very good way to regulate the height of my 
hand. From that time on it is needless to say 
I not only utilized it, as did our friend in the 
protection of his blade of grass, for his point 
of aim, but I wound all my strings with a dark 
and definite winding, so that the upper borders 
stopped at exactly the same distance from the 
knocking point. This enables me to more 
exactly repeat the position of my hand in rela¬ 
tion to my eye. and even now this repeated 
duplication of this position is becoming a sub¬ 
conscious movement, and in time I hope that it 
will not be necessary to even notice the upper 
border of my winding. I feel sure that all 
archers will agre with me that repeated exact¬ 
ness of this particular factor is a most important 
principle in any kind of archery, whether it be 
the legendary archery of our highest and most 
artistic conceptions, or the modern mechanical 
archery of the range shooting. 
The one thing which I plead for in this 
paper is the officially recognized right to openly 
employ any scientific method within the bounds 
of legitimate skill which increases our scores', 
and which tends toward the establishment of 
those exact subconscious movements which 
have characterized the great archers of all time. 
Four new State forests have recently been 
added to those in Hawaii, making twenty-seven 
in all, with an aggregate of 693.101 acres. Of 
this amount, 67 per cent, belongs to the terri¬ 
tory. the rest being private land administered 
by the territorial forest officers. 
“Kaiser suites” on Imperator, costing $5,000 
a trip, have all been taken every voyage, there 
being sometimes even waiting lists; $5,000 price 
includes fare of .ten persons including four 
servants; price in winter season is $2,500. 
