BOWLS
—is a game played upon a fine smooth grassy surface, either square, circular, or oblong, used solely for the purpose, and called a BOWLING-GREEN. The party may consist of two, four, six, or eight, and is generally chosen alternately, after tossing up a coin to decide who shall have the first choice. The sides being selected, each player has two bowls, which bowls have numerical figures, thereby ascertaining to whom they belong. The leader sends off a smaller bowl, called the jack, to what distance he pleases, it being (by the toss) his privilege so to do: this he follows with his first bowl, getting as near the jack as possible: he is then followed by one of the adverse party, the partner of the first following, and so in rotation till all the bowls are played; when as many of the bowls, on either side, as are nearer to the jack than the nearest on the opposite side, so many do the successful party score that time toward the game, and so on in succession, till one side or the other have won the match. Sometimes great disappointment happens in the play, when a ball laying very near the jack, is removed to a distance by the hit of an adversary's bowl, which remains nearer the jack than the bowl it has driven away; this is called a rub, and gave rise to the long-standing adage, "he that plays at bowls, must expect rubs."