I recently stumbled upon a great list of collective nouns for animals at oxforddictionaries.com, most of which I was unfamiliar with. We all know that a group of crows is called a murder, for example, but a busyness of ferrets? It would be interesting to know how many of these are Britishisms that are not used in America, but whether they have taken root here or not, they’re delightfully colorful and imaginative. Here’s a sampling.
a shrewdness of apes
a sloth of bears
a swarm or drift or hive or erst of bees
a herd or gang or obstinacy of buffalo
an army of caterpillars
a bask of crocodiles
a murder of crows
a raft or bunch or paddling of ducks on water
a safe of ducks on land
a busyness of ferrets
a skulk of foxes
a gaggle of geese on land
a skein or team or wedge of geese in flight
a cast of hawks
a siege of herons
a bloat of hippopotami
a mob or troop of kangaroos
a tiding of magpies
a troop of monkeys
a barren of mules
a watch of nightingales
a pandemonium of parrots
a crash of rhinoceros
a parliament or building of rooks
a host of sparrows
a knot of toads
a sounder of wild boar
a descent of woodpeckers
a zeal of zebras
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