Introduction

This is my favourite collection of collective nouns, generic animal names, similes, idioms and expressions in relation to the animal kingdom.

I started my collection about 30 years ago when James - my 5 year old son - and I were watching a family of foxes playing in our garden.  He asked me 'Where do foxes live?'  The answer could be one of two I thought, but I wasn't sure - either under the shed, or in a den, or could it be a lair!  It was the latter that caught my attention and I began to wonder about other animals - where they lived, what they ate, what the young were called and what a collection of these animals would be known as.

I decided to visit our local library ... definitely not in the days of a handy personal computer or i-pad!  

It was at this point that I discovered there was no 'dedicated' book on the subject of animal collective nouns for me to take home with me for us to look at together.  Rather surprised, I decided that I would pull together my own collection ... and here it is.  Of course, it grew from collective nouns to the generic family names, similes, idioms and anything else I could think of as being of use.

Not all the categories apply to every animal - for instance, there may be animals where collective nouns do not apply - so one will find that some groups may not be represented.