There are large shooting parties and small shooting parties, shooting parties to which royalty is invited and shooting parties restricted to intimate friends or relations, but in either case the period is the same, three days' shooting.
If a party is limited to five guns, seven ladies is the average number invited, the hostess relying upon a neighbour or a neighbour's son to equalise the balance at the dinner-table. The success of house-parties mainly depends upon people knowing each other, or fraternising when they are introduced or have made each other's acquaintance. The ladies of a country-house party are expected, as a rule, to amuse themselves, more or less, during the day. After luncheon there is usually a drive to a neighbouring town, a little shopping to be done there, or a call to be paid in the neighbourhood by some of the party, notably the married ladies, the young ladies being left to their own resources.
At the close of a visit game is offered to those of the shooters to whom it is known that it will be acceptable.
The head gamekeeper is usually instructed to put up a couple of brace of pheasants and a hare. But in some houses even this custom is not followed, and the whole of the game killed, with the exception of what is required for the house, finds its way into the market, both the local market and the London market.
Shooting parties as a rule give a hostess little anxiety on the score of finding amusement for the ladies of the party, as so many aids out of doors are at her command at this season of the year. This is a great advantage, as although some few ladies possessing great strength of nerve have taken up shooting as an amusement and pastime and acquit themselves surprisingly well in this manly sport, yet ladies in general are not inclined for so dangerous a game, and even those intrepid ladies who have learnt how to use their little gun would never be permitted to make one or two of a big shooting party, even were they so inclined.
The hostess and the ladies of the party invariably join the shooters at luncheon, and some of the ladies go out with the shooters in the morning to watch their prowess in the field; but this entails a great deal of walking where partridge shooting is concerned, which is quite another thing to covert shooting in November and December.
A good hostess has great opportunities for distinguishing herself when entertaining a country-house party, from the arrival of the first motor-car to the departure of the last. Her consideration and tact are so successfully exerted that somehow her guests always find themselves doing exactly what they like best and in company with those who are most congenial to them, to say nothing of the comfort of the general domestic arrangements, which seem to have been arranged exclusively for their convenience. If they wish to drive, there is a carriage or motor-car at their disposal; if they prefer a constitutional, there is some one very agreeable desirous of walking with them. The daily papers are always to be found, the post-bag goes out at a most convenient hour by the hand of a special messenger, the dinner is of the best, and the evening is of the cheeriest. Bridge as a rule is played in most houses, and several tables are arranged in the drawing-room to accommodate the would-be players.