Roving
So called from the shooters roving from place to place, over field, heath, moor, common, finding their marks in trees, posts, bushes, &c. The distances constantly varying, give to young archers a great deal of practice; besides which, the variety of the scenery, and the various incidents that occur in a day's roving, are often highly interesting and exciting. By roving the eye gets a habit of measuring distances, and the hand and arm strength for the bow. Blunt-headed arrows are the best for roving, of which about a dozen ought to be carried by each archer. Sharp arrows would imbed themselves too deeply in trees to be easily extracted. In a roving party, arrows that reach within five bows' length of the mark tell, and those which are nearest cut the others out. Each archer measures with his own bow. The number of the game is often nine, but generally twelve.