Dear Mary…
Q. I rarely shoot, since I have always been a hopeless shot. However, I recently went out for a day and was rather pleased to shoot a woodcock. At the end of the day, as the keeper was loading my car, I was surprised to see only pheasants in the boot. ‘What happened to my woodcock?’ I asked. He replied, ‘Oh, Lady X [my hostess] is rather partial to woodcock. She’s kept that back for herself.’ This seemed to me rather unjust, and I wondered if I had been ‘abused’, in today’s parlance. Was I wrong to have assumed that he who shoots it gets it, so to speak?
A.C., London W12
A. Yes, you were wrong. The correct etiquette on a shoot is that everything belongs to the host. However, despite the fact that most shoots are wildly uneconomical, the hosts are normally generous enough to give each guest at least a brace of whatever has been shot.
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