A magnificent word, ‘sounder’. It conjures up images of rustling undergrowth, surly grunts and the sort of noisy scampering that makes an old hunting hound’s ears prick up with ancient longing.
It also got my old brain ticking. If a group of wild swine can have such a majestic moniker, why shouldn’t the motley collection of characters in our own backyards be properly classified?
As a dog of letters, I feel compelled to offer a refined lexicon for my canine friends, with a little help from The Boss.
Let us begin with the backyard aristocracy: a glaring of cats. It perfectly captures the countenance of a certain neighbourhood feline when New Boy puts it up a tree. It does not move. It simply blinks slowly, radiating a cold superiority, despite its internal panic.
Down along the river flats, we have those nocturnal wretches: a skulk of foxes. It is a fitting name for creatures who move like rust-coloured shadows and leave pungent messages and furry scats on the track, hours before my morning walk. They are guilty of everything, and they know it.
As for the birds, well, we all love a pandemonium of parrots; we marvel at the wheeling clouds of cockatoos, the herds of wrens and the charms of finches. We see flushes of teal after a middling flood and bands of jays in winter. And The Boss has always noted the frequent murder of crows and the occasional covey of quail.
But swarming in from town now and then are the true avian tyrants: a statute of Indian Mynas. These feathered hooligans march across the lawn in tight formation like tiny, arrogant drill sergeants. They squawk, they swagger and they torment me when I’m in the kennel, perching on the overhead wire and chatting like parents at a kindergarten playground. What perverse biologist awarded them a statute?
With some trepidation I learn of a knot of snakes – one is surely enough, as I have learned to my cost, and a knot doesn’t bear thinking about. But we do see a husk of hares now and then, an army of frogs, a bike of hornets and a mob of kangaroos. And increasingly on both sides of the river, a wisdom of wombats. And wiser still, despite hearing the repetitive hoot of a boobook on calmer nights, the parliament of owls has eluded me so far.
Which brings me, naturally, to the most puzzling species of all: Homo sapiens.
When gathered in public, they deserve their own venereal precision. I propose we call a gathering at the off-leash park a baffle of dog owners. Watch them standing in a loose circle, holding empty plastic bags, silently praying for good behaviour. Somewhere behind them, a Golden Retriever is trying to mount a Great Dane. No-one claims to know whose dog that is.
Still, one mustn't be too hard on them. A sounder of boars will charge you, a glaring of cats will judge you, and a statute of mynas will mock you. But a baffle of humans? Manage them with a heavy sigh, a wag of the tail, and a sad-eyed stare, and they will supply back scratches and accidentally drop chicken skin on the kitchen floor for the rest of your days.
Feeling generous if not grateful, I thought I should ask The Boss what he would call a group of handsome, literate Chessies like me – I’m thinking ‘distinguished’ or ‘noble’ would serve nicely. ‘A stubbornness’, he snaps, without missing a beat. I’m sorry I asked. Woof!
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