The publisher of this book utilises modern printing technologies as well as photocopying processes for reprinting and preserving rare works of literature that are out-of-print or on the verge of becoming lost. This book is one such reprint.

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter fflf. Or The Bow. Varieties of Form and Material The Flodden Row The Bows in the Tower The Self-Bow, its Form, Texture, and Weight Quality of the Yew The Backed-Bow Woods mostly employed The Shape- Came of the Jar The Length Relative Merits of the Self and Backed Yew Bows The Carriage Bow. Of the various implements of Archery the bow demands the first consideration, and to it I shall therefore devote the present chapter. A general, though necessarily brief, outline of its reign and use in this country, and of its power and character in the hands of the English, having already been given, it may only be necessary further to add that, in almost every nation, it has, at one period or other, formed one of the chief weapons of war and the chase, and is, indeed, at the present day, in use for both these purposes in various parts of the world. It has differed as much in form as in material, having been made curved, angular, and straight; of wood, metal, horn, cane, whalebone only, or of wood and horn, or wood and the entrails and sinews of animals and fish combined; sometimes of the rudest workmanship, sometimes finished with the highest perfection of art. But, as it is certain that in no country has the practice of Archery been carried to such a degree of perfection as in our own, so is it equally undeniable that no bow of any other nation has eversurpassed or, indeed, equalled the English long-bow in respect of strength, cast, or any other requirement of a perfect weapon. This being an indisputable fact, it would be a waste of space and a departure from my immediate object were I to enter into a description of the bows used at various times in different countries, or into a discussion as to their respective merits. I shall not, therefore, do so, bu...