The Athletes and Athletic Sports of Scotland

78 ATHLETIC SPORTS OF SCOTLAND. The latter, however, differ considerably in style also. Some draw up both feet, with the knees bent up towards thebreast, but most ofthem at the moment of rising turntheir sidetowards the bar. As they go over some have the legs stretched out like a side leaper; others go over as if sitting ontheir heels. The third and most graceful andmost effective style, is to draw the right leg smartly up first as the bodyrises, the left following, and being drawn up so quickly as to give the secondary impetus already alluded to. After the feet are over the bar the leftside is bent, andthe left thigh andbuttock turned clear of the barin coming down. D. Dinnie and A. Milne, Montrose, had this style toperfection, the latter clearing about three inches above his own height. When D. Dinnie first visited America hewas considerably astonished to find a brand new style adopted by A. Goldie, New York, who went over thebar head first,as if taking a header intoa pool on the otherside ofthe bar. DIFFICULTY OF DETERMINING BEST PERFORMANCES.—Best performances at the high leap are a very knotty and much- debated point in Scottish athletics. Various causes make it most difficult not only to determine themerits ofdifferent leaps at different times ondifferent ground,but to determine the merit of any leap at any time. In the first place, the nature of the turf and the soil on which it rests, has much to do with the merit of a high leap. Old, close turf, with short grass, on dry soil, makes atake-off at once firm and elastic; rich, moist soil, with either too much or too little grass,makes thetake-off heavy and dead. In the secondplace, thecross baris seldom or never level fromside to side, but bent in the middle, so that to measure the height, as is often done, bythe height of the pegs supporting the cross bar, may add from one to three inches to the real height cleared. Even when the leap is measured from the centre of the cross bar to the ground, caremust be taken that the lineor rod is perpendicular. But the maindifficulty in esti­ mating the true value of a high leap at Scottish games isthat it is never, orvery rarely, done on level ground. In anexperience