This is the kind of arrow mostly used by the boys, whose game is almost exclusively small birds or lemmings. Nowadays the bone pile is often replaced by an empty cartridge shell, which makes a very good head. I have seen a phalarope transfixed at short range by one of these cartridge-headed arrows. An assortment of the different kind of arrows is usually carried in the quiver. The lot numbered 25, from Nuwŭk, which I believe to be a fairly average set, contains two flint-headed bear arrows, one barbed bear arrow with a steel pile, six bear arrows with iron piles, one deer arrow, two fowl arrows, and one bird arrow. As I have already said, all these arrows are flattened above and below at the nocks. This indicates that they were intended to be held to the string and let go after the manner of what is called the “Saxon release,” namely, by hooking the ends of the index and second fingers round the string and holding the arrow between them, the string being released by straightening the fingers. This is the “release” which we actually saw employed both by the boys and one or two men who showed us how to draw the bow. This method of release has been observed at Cumberland Gulf[N308] and at East Cape, Siberia, and is probably universal among the Eskimo, as all the Eskimo arrows in the National Museum are fitted for this release. There is ample material in the Museum collections for a comparative study of Eskimo arrows, which I hope some day to be able to undertake, when the material is in a more available condition. One or two references to other regions will not, however, be out of place. The arrow with a barbed bone after-pile seems a very general form, being represented in the Museum from most of the Alaskan regions, as well as from the Mackenzie. Scoresby mentions finding the head of one of these at the ancient settlements in east Greenland.[N309] The arrow, however, described by Capt. Parry[N310] has a real foreshaft of bone, not a barbed after pile. One of these arrows from the Mackenzie has the after pile barbed on both sides, the only instance, I believe, in the Museum of a bilaterally-barbed Eskimo arrow where the pile is not wholly of metal. [Footnote N308: “In shooting this weapon the string is placed on the first joint of the first and second fingers of the right hand.” (Kumlien, Contributions, p. 37.) “Beim Spannen wird der Pfeil nicht zwischen Daumen und Zeigefinger, sondern zwischen Zeige- und Mittelfinger gehalten,” Krause Brothers, Geographische Blätter, vol. 5, p. 33.] [Footnote N309: Voyage to the Northern Whale Fishery, p. 187.] [Footnote N310: 2d Voyage, p. 511, and figured with the bow (22) on Pl. opposite p. 550.]