Bunnies to Bear with Bow and Arrow 
OME part of our primitive nature 
draws us to the bow as naturally 
as we are drawn to the campfire. 
If you ask the reason, I would answer 
that it is because we have twanged 
the bowstring in war, in chase and 
sport during four hundred and ninety- 
six of the last five hundred centuries 
of our upward struggle. This is 
proved by the finding of aboriginal 
flint arrow-heads that anthropologists 
know were made at least five hundred 
centuries ago. During this long stretch 
of time the arched weapon has been to 
active man what the gun now is to the 
professional soldier, his pride in camp, 
his surest means of bringing down 
game in hunting country, and his best 
weapon in battle. The yew long bow 
which first made England a_ world 
power, was not displaced by muskets 
until after the Pilgrims sailed for Hol- 
land. 
These observations bring to us the 
reason for the present day interest in 
archery. The bow holds its own and 
peculiar place in man’s interest, and 
will continue to do so in spite of other 
artificial sports that periodically turn 
us from it. 
Hunting with the modern high 
power rifle, shooting bullets that kill 
at a quarter of a mile, is really won- 
derful sport, but it is pretty one-sided. 
Game doesn’t have much of a chance. 
One’s woodcraft is not drawn upon. 
If the stiuation is not altered, our wild 
life will not long survive the attacks 
of the modern sportsman, especially 
when he has the double advantage of 
the ton-striking rifle and the fleet far- 
reaching automobile. 
More and more our sportsmen are 
taking up the mastery of the long 
bow and broad head arrow. Of course 
one cannot pot as much game as with 
a gun, but he can easily bring in meat 
enough to whet his hunting zest, and 
yet feel that, using the bow, he is 
doing a little to promote what Mr. 
Carl Akeley calls, ‘fa decent attitude 
towards game.” 
EFORE going any further it is 
well to know something definite 
about just what a long bow is. It is 
a graceful weapon, s:x feet in length, 
made of the most elastic wood obtain- 
able. Western yew, Taxus canadensis, 
makes the very finest weapon, while 
osage orange makes a bow that is very 
390 
By CASSIUS H. STYLES 
nearly its equal. The six foot bow is 
strung. with a specially plaited, re- 
inforced string made of raw flax or 
hemp. The power of a bow is rated 
by the number of pounds of. dead pull 
required to draw the arrow its full 
longth of twenty-eight inches. This 

The author, in the stand of an archer. 
length I believe is the same as that 
of the ancient cloth yard shaft. 
The arrows that are used are of the 
above length, twenty-eight inches, and 
vary in diameter, weight, type of head, 
and _ feathering. All have three 
feathers set near the rear end, equally 
spaced around the circumference of the 
shaft, and so arranged that the arrow 
leaves the bow without any of the 
Experiences of a Sylvan Archer 
three feathers coming full against the 
bow or the bow hand. Target arrows 
are five-sixteenth of an inch in di- 
ameter, of fir or pine, and have steel 
ferrule tips, and the smallest possible 
feathers. Hunting arrows are made 
of a tough hard wood, hickory, birch 
cr ash. They have larger feathers, 
four inches long and an inch high, cut 
from a turkey’s heaviest wing pinions, 
and their heads are vicious to look at. 
Tor deer or bear, the heads should be 
an inch and a quarter wide and up to 
three inches long, made from tough 
sheet steel. The more gradually the 
point is tapered the better it will pene- 
trate. 
UNTING arrows are painted a 
bright orange or yellow to help in 
finding and to keep the wood from 
warping. With experience and prac- 
tice one learns to find arrows very 
easily. Hunting in the mountains I 
have lost an average of only one shaft 
a week. I have carried certain arrows 
for over a year, until the feathers were 
worn off. 
The effective range of a hunting 
arrow is not over a hundred yards, 
though it will fly twice that distance. 
Cne cannot expect to hit consistently at 
a distance of over forty yards if he is — 
a very poor shot, as I am. A well 
aimed arrow will go into a six-inch 
circle at sixty yards every time. I 
have seen an archer, Eugene Mont- 
gomery, put six out of nine arrows into 
a two inch circle at twenty-five yards. 
Try that with your pistol. 
As to penetration, a fifty pound bow 
will send a broadhead right through a 
deer’s body if no large bones are hit, 
and will kill that deer as quickly as 
a high power rifle if it touches his 
heart, lungs, brains or viscera. The 
hemorrhage from an arrow is much 
greater than from a bullet, while the 
shock is non-existent. An arrow kills 
by its sharp rapier-like thrust. 
HIS same Eugene Montgomery one 
day killed a large deer with a 
head _ shot. 
forehead, through the brain, and stuck 
out of the neck vertebrae. He was us- 
ing a fifty-two pound bow. 
The penetration of a ferrule tipped 
arrow is hardly one-eighth that of a 
similar arrow pointed with a _ broad 
spear point, as its head does not cut a 
His arrow went in the — 
, 
4 
y 
pen. 
