LOL....

Ah grasshopper, you have much to learn. When you can take the pebble from my hand, you can go into the world...

We *can* say a "group of XX", problem is we choose not to. Sometimes I think it's from animal biologists who want to make their field sexier. Of course it could be the need for us to obfuscate information - only the elites, the educated ones would have that info, thus info is power, along that line of thinking...

left out "murder" - murder of crows. school, swarm, covey,... I know, I didn't help.
Jay

Congregation?

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Jay

Right, and the song title "A Murder of One" by the Counting Crows woulnd't be nearly as clever is we just called them a group of crows.

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Because biologists need to make a living just like anyone else. If it was easy, anyone could do it.

Someone has got to know the answer to this. I have to BUMP it.

Demerly...I would think this is up your alley of knowledge/trivia.

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Adrian in Vancouver

http://rinkworks.com/words/collective.shtml

I believe most of the names come from medieval England. When rich nobles had nothing to do all day but hunt and push around the serfs. So you have a parliament of owls (owls were supposed to be wise not to be confuse with the 70's band with George Clinton) and a murder of crows (probably because crows are peoples souls). After awhile it became a symbol of woodlore for hunters and such.

PS. I asked my wife who has a BS in Anthropology and took some linguistics classes as part of the major. The pushing around serfs was pure dramatic flair on my part.

Dude, You have way too much time on your hands.