"So long as the new moon returns in heaven abeautiful bent bow, so long will archery keep meditative hold of the hearts of men."

From a practical standpoint, there are no real secrets abou thunting the white tail deer with archery tackle. It is a matter of education, the meditation of the hunt. One must know a lot about the bow. One must become proficient with it. One must know a lot about the nature and habits of deer. When these things are mastered, the hunter may have hopes of being successful on occasion.

It must not be assumed that the bow is as efficient as the rifle. It is not. It has not the power, the range or the accuracy.The hunter who chooses the bow is taking a handicap of 20 to1. It follows, therefore, that the archer is either crazy or the king of all optimists, or so say the non-archers.

The toxopohilite, however, takes an entirely different view.In most cases the would-be bow hunter has hunted for man yyears with firearms. He has reached a point where his sporting conscience tells him that he has taken his share of this noble animal. He has become conscious of the fact that fish and game cannot vote; he has, for sometime past, concluded tha tit is time for him to do something about conservation. But, when he reflects on the 20 to 1 handicap the archer must take, conscience appears to issue a parole. He knows that bow hunters will never be able to reduce the herd even though the season be open to both sexes. He knows there will be very few if any permanent cripples.

After reviewing these facts, he feels the urge to sally forthwith a full quiver of arrows and a dependable bow to see whatthe red gods have in store for him. Success or not, he will beout with nature and will enjoy a full cup of pleasure.

Few people seem to realize the important part the bow has played in man's advance toward civilization. It has been said that the three most important incidents in man's early development were the discovery and application of fire and the inventions of the wheel and the bow. Without fire man could not have advanced to a position much above the ape, without the wheel man could not have progressed and without the bow he may not have survived. The bow is the instrument that marked the time when man really gained "Dominion over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

It is not the purpose of this website to record a history of archery. Such a story would be the history of man's progress from the third interglacial period to the 17th century. But, inorder to appreciate the antiquity and the importance of this weapon, a short sketch touching the highlights of archery seems to be in order.

Paleontologists have found arrow points embedded in deposits known to have been formed during the 3rd interglacial period. These points bear the trademark of Mousterian culture, the first artifacts made by pressure flaking. This would indicate that certain tribes, at least, of the Neanderthal group used the bow—one hundred thousand years ago!