To LEARN THE ART OF BOWLING.--1. First, consult with some Lillywhite or Wisden, and fix on one, and one only, plan of holding the ball, manageable pace, and general style of delivery. Consult and experiment till you have chosen the style that suits the play of your muscles and your strength. If you choose a violent and laborious style, you will certainly become tired of it: but a style within your strength will be so delightful that you will be always practising. Secondly, having definitely chosen one form and style of bowling, the next thing is to fix it and form it into a habit: for, on the law of Habit a bowler’s accuracy entirely depends. To form a steady habit of bowling, the nerves and muscles being a very delicate machinery, you must be careful to use them in one way, and one way only; for then they will come to serve you truly and mechanically: but, even a few hours spent in loose play--in bowling with few steps or many, or with a new mode of delivery--will often establish conflicting habits, or call into action a new set of muscles, to interfere with the muscles on which you mainly depend. Many good players (including the most destructive of the Gentleman’s Eleven!) have lost their bowling by these experiments: many more have been thrown back when near perfection. Therefore, 2. Never bowl a single ball but in your chosen and adopted form and style--with the same steps, and with the ball held in the same way. “If these seem small things, habit is not a small thing.” Also, never go on when you are too tired to command your muscles; else, you will be twisting yourself out of form, and calling new and conflicting muscles into action. As to Pace, if your strength and stature is little, your pace cannot be fast. Be contented with being rather a slow bowler. By commencing slowly, if any pace is in you, it will not be lost; but by commencing fast, you will spoil all. 3. Let your carriage be upright though easy; and start composedly from a state of perfect rest. Let your steps, especially the last, be short; and, for firm foothold, and to avoid shaking yourself or cutting up the ground, learn to descend not on the heel but more on the toe and flat of the foot, and so as to have both feet in the line of the opposite wicket. For,