Arrow (device)

“ Thompson contends that no man ever has, or ever will keep more than three arrows up in the air at once.
Having read this and determined to try the experiment of dextrous shooting, I constructed a dozen light arrows having wide nocks and flattened rear ends so they might be fingered quickly. Then I devised a way of grasping a supply of ready shafts in the bow hand, and invented an arrow release in which all the fingers and thumb held the arrow on the string, yet remained entirely on the right side of it. ”

“ In shooting for distance, of course, a very light missile is used, and nothing but empirical tests can determine the shape, size, and weight that suits each bow. Consequently, we use hundreds of arrows to find the best. For more than seven years these experiments have continued, and at this stage of our progress the best flight arrow is made of Japanese bamboo five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, having a foreshaft of birch the same diameter and four inches long. The nock is a boxwood plug inserted in the rear end, both joints being bound with silk floss and shellacked. ”

“ He is allowed to feather the first arrow in the bow string, and then at a given signal he instantly shoots. The object is to see how many arrows he can shoot into the air before the first one fired reaches the ground. ”

“ The bow and arrow was the greatest of all human inventions—greatest in that it marked man’s first step in mechanics, greatest in adaptation of means to the end, and as an invented machine it manifested in the most practical and marked manner the intellectual and reasoning power of man and his superiority over the brute creation. ”

“ No one could shoot an arrow without a bow, and when some one shouted that if an arrow was used as a dagger, one wouldn't need a bow, a sort of frenzy seized her and she acted quite insane, falling at the young girl's side and whispering sentence after sentence in her ear. ”

“ The bow is remarkable for having the string coated with a sort of resinous substance in order to preserve it, the middle of the cord being skilfully wrapped with bark to guard it against injury from the nock of the arrow. The arrows are made of two pieces, the head being shaped from a hard and heavy wood, and the shaft being a reed. The place where they are joined is strengthened by a ligature of bark. The butt of the arrow is wrapped in the same manner to prevent it from being split by the string. ”

“ That will do. Now keep your bow-arm straightened, and bend the wrist of your gloved hand inward. Now raise your bow, steadily drawing the arrow at the same time—not towards your eye, but towards your ear. Be steady! When it is three parts drawn, take your aim at the centre. Keep the head of the arrow a little to the right of the mark. Be cool, and, if you are sure of your aim, draw the arrow quickly and steadily to the head, and gently part your fingers and let it go!"
The shaft, loosened from the string, cut the air and buried itself in the very centre of the golden eye of the target. ”

“ The stringing of a bow is no easy task for an amateur; nor is the discharge of an arrow, under such dangerous circumstances as marked the delivery of the one we are discussing, one which would be lightly attempted by a person altogether ignorant of archery. However strong the evidence might be against a man who was not an utter fool, I would never have presumed to lay it out before you if I had not verified the fact that the director, whatever his life now, was once greatly addicted to sports, and thoroughly acquainted with the management of a bow and arrow. ”

“ Accordingly, in practice, the chested arrow has always a tendency to fly to the left. These chested arrows are mostly flight-arrows, made very light, for long-distance shooting, and they are made of this shape to prevent their being too weak-waisted to bear steadily the recoil of very strong bows. ”

“ Dick said perhaps the plain arrows were for shooting at a target, but the barbed ones for killing things.
“I expect,” said Uncle John, “that the barbed arrows were used in battle. A barbed arrow cannot be plucked out of a wound, and so it is more deadly than the other. The plain arrows were generally used in hunting. When a man had shot a deer or a hare, he wanted to be able to pull out his arrow at once and use it again, but a barbed arrow sticks in the wound and cannot be pulled out.” ”

“ Arrows will be found to wear out quite speedily enough without being subjected to ill-usage or neglect to hurry them through their short lives.
It appears to be well authenticated that if a light-chested flight-arrow be feathered at each end, with the feathers trimmed lower at the nock than at the pile end, when shot against the wind it will return back again like a boomerang. And if the same-shaped arrow be feathered in the middle only, it will in its flight make a right angle, and no power of bow can send it any considerable distance. ”

“ To reload the magazine you'd just slap down a new bundle of arrows, in no more time than it would take to put one arrow in an ordinary bow. I figured that with practice a man should be able to get off forty arrows in not much more than twenty seconds. ”

“ Never use a light arrow with a heavy bow, nor, conversely, a heavy arrow with a light bow. Arrows are generally made of one piece of wood, but sometimes a harder kind is used for the part joining the tip and which is dovetailed into the shaft. ”

“ He already has, as you will remember, the arrow hidden somewhere about his person, and it is only a few steps to the edge of the tapestry behind which he has secreted the bow. If he takes a look opposite, it is at the moment when both Mrs. Taylor and Miss Willetts are screened from his view by one of the partitions separating the various sections. For unless he felt the way to be free for his arrow, he would never have proceeded to slip behind his chosen pedestal, secure the bow, pause to string it, then crouch for his aim in such apparent confidence. ”

“ Every rifle expert knows what his gun is capable of, in accuracy, and an archer should know just what to expect of an arrow under the most favorable conditions. We therefore tried shooting the same arrow over the same course with the same release, under these fairly stable conditions: The day was calm. We shot an arrow ten times in succession and all the shots centered in a six inch bull's-eye; that is, none went out of a circle of this diameter. In other words, at sixty yards a bow can shoot arrows with an error of dispersion of no more than six inches. ”

“ At greater ranges he must estimate a distance above the mark on which he holds his arrow in order to drop it on the object of his shot.
If his shaft flies to the left, it is because he has not drawn the nock beneath his right eye, or he has thrown his head out of line, or the string has hit his shirt sleeve or something has deflected the arrow.
If it falls to the right, it is because he has made a forward, creeping release, or weakened in his bow arm, or in drawing to the center of the jaw instead of the angle beneath the eye. ”

“ A standard English target arrow rotates during flight six complete revolutions every twenty yards, or approximately fifteen times a second. Heavy hunting shafts turn more slowly. This was ascertained by shooting two arrows at once from the same bow, their shafts being connected by a silk thread, so that one paid off as the other wound up the thread. ”

“ For the longer ranges lighter arrows are used. The Scottish clout was a piece of canvas, stretched on a frame; the range 180 or 200 yds.; all arrows counted one that were within 24 ft. of the target, the clout counting two. Modern archers have paid scant attention to mere distance-shooting, which is an art of its own, but their experiments prove that with a fairly heavy bow, say 60 ℔ or 63 ℔, and a long light arrow, known as a “flight arrow,” a good archer should be able to reach 300 or 310 yds. With a heavier bow, properly under control, 50 or 60 yds. might be added to this by a strong man. ”

“ Each warrior carries a measuring, or pattern stick, and it is necessary only to compare an arrow with the stick to find out to whom it belongs. But should the arrows by chance be of one length, there are other means of identifying them; for every hunter has his own private mark in the shaft, the head, or the feather. Of many thousands I have examined, I have never found two arrows exactly alike when they were made by different warriors.
When the shafts have been made even, the next work is to form the notch for the bow-string. ”

“ Two things are essential to a good arrow, namely, perfect straightness, and a stiffness or rigidity sufficient to stand in the bow, i.e. to receive the force of the bow as delivered by the string without flirting or gadding; for a weak or supple is even worse than a crooked arrow—and it need hardly be said how little conducive to shooting straight is the latter. The straightness of the arrow is easily tested by the following simple process. ”

“ The bows used are very short, about two-and-a-half feet long, and are kept very tight. The arrows are short and light, generally made of bamboo, or a light cane, and a man with a powerful wrist can send an arrow a considerable distance, and yet hit his target every time. ”

“ As it is thrust forward, the string drops into its notch, the trigger-peg is set, and an arrow falls with its butt just in front of the string. When it is drawn sharply back, the string is released by the trigger-peg, the arrow is propelled, and another falls into its place. If, therefore, a boy be kept at work supplying the slide with arrows, a constant stream of missiles can be poured from this weapon.
The arrows are very much like the “bolts” of the old English cross-bow. They are armed with heavy and solid steel heads, and are feathered in a very ingenious manner. ”

“ The use of these words seems to point to a time when iron-tipped arrows were used as cutting instruments, and it is even possible that this is a survival of a time when [587] the Todas were so much isolated that their only iron was that of the tips of their arrows.
FIG. 67 (FROM BREEKS) .—THE FIRST MAN ON THE LEFT IS HOLDING A BOW AND ARROW; THE SECOND A CLUB (PROBABLY THE ‘NANMAKUD’) IN HIS RIGHT HAND, AND THE ‘TADRI’ IN HIS LEFT; THE THIRD MAN IS CARRYING A CLUB, AND THE FOURTH MAN IS PLAYING THE ‘BUGURI.’
The bow and arrow are also mentioned in the legend of Kwoten. ”

“ The effects produced by weapons and instruments are thought of in the same manner. We say that an arrow is shot from a bow with such force as to penetrate the body and cause a wound. The savage could not think or speak in this way, because he had no verbs and could not think of nouns in the objective case. He thought of the arrow as an animate thing having a cutting or piercing quality. When placed in a suitable position to exercise its powers, it flew, of its own volition, through the air to the target, and communicated to it by contact some of the above quality. ”

“ All the fingers of the right hand must bear their proper share of work. The great tendency is to permit the forefinger to shirk and to put too much work on the ring finger.
If the arrow has a tendency to fall away from the bow, tip the upper limb ten degrees to the right and pull more on the right forefinger, also start the draw with the fingers more acutely flexed, so that as the arrow is pinched between the first and second fingers and as they tend to straighten out under the pressure of the string, the arrow is pressed against the bow, not away from it. ”

“ The arrow should rest on the knuckles without lateral support. Now place your fingers in position for shooting. The release used by the old English is the best. This consists in placing three fingers on the string, one above the arrow, two below. The string rests midway between the last joint and the tip of the finger. The thumb should not touch the arrow, but lie curled up in the palm.
The release used by children consists in pinching the arrow between the thumb and forefinger, and is known as the primary loose. This type is not strong enough to draw an arrow half way on a hunting bow. ”

“ Draw the arrow to the head as it comes up. All your muscles are, up to this point, alert but tensed only to the extent necessary to draw the shaft. At the exact moment of release, however, they stiffen to the utmost. It is like a little spurt of energy released to speed the arrow on its way. That, I think, is what Dr. Pope means when he says one should "put his heart in the bow." It helps to imagine yourself trying to drive the arrow right through the target. Pay especial attention to the muscles of the small of the back. The least relaxation there means an ill-sped shaft. ”

“ The arrow is a little stick made of very hard wood of about 12 or 14 inches long and not much bigger than a big knitting needle. At one extremity is fixed a tiny cone made of palm-pith that stopping up the tube, receives the impulsion of the air blown into it so violently. ”

“ Stones for arrow-heads must be very hard. When found, the red men bury them in wet ground and build fires over them, causing the stones to show all cracks and checks. This enables the arrow-maker to discard those unfitted for his work.
Though you cannot make a real flint arrow-head, you can manufacture a toy one. Take a piece of stiff pasteboard and cut it like Fig. 183. Let the length be a trifle over half an inch. Cover the arrow-head all over with a light coat of glue, then dip it in sand, and the arrow-head will come out as if made of stone. ”