I have been delightfully looking through the catalogue for the Getty Museum's exhibition on Jean-Baptiste Oudry's 18th century paintings of exotic animals Huge richly colored, purely lush paintings - they fairly leap off the page in the most exhilarating manner. The rhino is actually Clara, famous for all sorts of reasons. I haven't read either book on her yet but plan to (Clara's Grand Tour by Glynis Ridley or the children's title, My Travels With Clara by Mary Tavener Holmes.) That one is also published by the Getty.

I've been thinking about rhinos in particular lately as I just enjoyed A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry by Marjorie Maddox (stellar illustrations by Philip Huber). It's due out in April and I will be including it in a column on animal books (both fiction and non) that I'm slowly putting together. Maddox plays with all kinds of pack names, like "tower of giraffes", "army of ants", "scurry of squirrels" and my favorite, "murder of crows". The poems focus on the nature of the animals and how they might have led to their pack names, although she explains in an endnote that sometimes, folks just pick a pretty name, as in the group at the North American Butterfly Assoc who decided to go with "charm of butterflies". (Perfect, I think.)

The ultimate pack name book is James Lipton's Exhaltation of Larks which looks at the history of language and how it is has developed not only into how we view groups of animals, but people as well ("pocket of quarterbacks" for example).

Maddox points to Lipton's book in her bibliography and also A Crash of Rhinoceroses: A Dictionary of Collective Nouns by Rex Collings. It is sadly out of print (I am determined to track it down however), but a quick search for Collings finds that he was the man who published the classic Watership Down by Richard Adams. I hope this is the same Rex Collings (how many can there be who were writers?) as it is so perfectly appropriate.

There are also several websites mentioned by Maddoz, including A Beastly Garden of Wordly Delights which includes long wonderful lists of collective animal nouns, like a "cartload of chimpanzees" and "bask of crocodiles". Going through the names has made me wonder just where "bed of clams" came from - it makes no sense and I see that "flutter of butterflies" is included here which proves part of what Maddox explains, oral and written traditions have stepped all over each other in this area so more than one name is not uncommon. (I am much more partial to "tower of giraffes" than "herd", for example.)

Oh - and here's something that doesn't surprise me, Maddox is a Professor of English!

I think pack names is the sort of thing that intrigues everyone, regardless of age. Maddox's book would be excellent then for any age and nice introduction to the subject even for high school students. (More on Oudry's Painted Menagerie later.)

A quick reminder that Monday will include a new Wicked Cool Overlooked Book which will also be the first title for this year's You Should Read This Award. The category will be discussed on Monday; I hope everyone is ready to participate!