hospitality of
the hostess. On the other hand, invitations are sometimes given
independently of dates, but this friendly style of invitation is not
given when a large party is invited, and it is understood to mean that
the hostess may be quite alone, or may have guests staying with her, as
the case may be. This form of invitation is frequently given to people
visiting in Scotland, on account of the great distance from town.

It is a very general custom to give shooting parties the third week in
September, harvest permitting. If the harvest is late on account of
unfavourable weather the shooting parties are postponed until the first
week in the ensuing month. The guests, or at least the crack guns, are
usually invited for partridge driving, which is what partridge shooting
now actually amounts to.

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. T