OK, hands up all those who know the collective noun for jellyfish, or bees (other than a swarm), or turtles -- and no peeking in James Lipton's wonderful compilation "An exaltation of larks".

Accoerding to a report in today's Melbourne Age (copied from the Telegraph in London), an English headmaster, Steve Palin, has just published "A menagerie of animals", a successor to his "A dissimulation of birds".

And the answers (according to Palin) are: a smuck of jellyfish (Lipton has 'smack'), a grist of bees, and a bale of turtles (apparently a mediaeval miscopying of a 'dule' of turtle doves).