When a large envelope arrives through the post, distinguished by most legible and artistic handwriting, you know that it comes from Andy Barclay of Jude's Acre, Baily, Howth (and of this newspaper), and that it will contain not so much a letter as a wise and wonderful anthology: honey bees, stuffed birds in glass cases, extracts from rustic diaries, accounts of visits to second-hand bookshops and curiosity shops, encounters with living birds and more. One of the intriguing offerings this time adds to the list of collective nouns for birds given here some time ago as "a wisp of snipe, a gaggle of geese", etc. It originates from Dame Juliana Berners (from The Book of St Al- bans) in the early 15th century. Watch the spelling: "An Herde of Swannys; A Nye of Feasunttys; A Bevy of Ladies; A Sege of Heronnys; A Mustre of Pecockys; An Exaltynge of Larkis; A Wache of Nyghtingalis, A Cherme of Goldefynches; An Unkyndness of Ravenes; A Route of Knyghtis; A Pride of Lionys; A Gagle of Gees; A Brode of Hennys; A Scole of Clerkes; A Tabernacle of Bakers; A Blush of Boyes; A Cast of Haukis; A Congregation of Plevers; A Flight of Goshaukes; A Mute of Houndis; A Pepe of Chykennys; A Pontificate of Prelatis.
"The title of this particular piece is "Dame Juliana's Walking List". This from a book Andy bought recently in Cork - The Out of Doors Book by Arthur Stanley (Dent and Sons, 1933). A few things you might wonder at. Why an Unkindness of Ravens? Lovely birds. Now an unusual hunting story from a book by H. Rider Haggard - "Yes, the She and King Solomon's Mines Haggard," writes Andy. This is from A Farm- er's Year, for he had much land in Norfolk. Out shooting one day, "I was walking down one of the long tunnel-like drives when a woodcock sprang from the brushwood ... so close did it pass that my loader put out his hand and caught it, much as a clever field might take a ball at point. The bird showed no outward signs of having been wounded."
Thomas Henn, eminent scholar, well known in this country, a tutor at Cambridge when Andy was there, told him of a "snipe-caller" Henn and friends used in Sligo. It was of wood, with holes cut in it and was whirled around the head on a six-foot string and made a noise like that of snipe drumming - to attract others to the gun. On another day, his stories of the bird that won't go away, so to speak, the bittern.