After that it was merely a matter of improvement. The arrow-end was apt to slip from the string until some one thought to notch it. Its head struck with such force that the early hunter decided to give it a sharp point, shaped from a flake of flint, in order that it might drive deep into the body of a deer or bear..

But, most of all, it must fly true and straight to its mark. Who of all these simple people first learned to feather its shaft? Was it some one who had watched the swift, sure-footed spring of a bushy-tailed squirrel from branch to branch? Possibly, for the principle is the same. At all events with its feathers and its piercing point the arrow became the most deadly of all missiles, and continued to be until long after the invention of firearms.