Tuesday, June the 7th, 2005

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The Lure of Lists

I have always been struck by the fact that one way to describe a condition of apathy, ennui, tiredness or general debility is to say that we are listless. The word itself tells us how to rouse ourselves from such a stupor—get a list! A good list is a marvellous thing, and sure to blow away the cobwebs of Weltschmerz*.

That is the first point. The second point is contained in a letter I received some time ago from an anonymous correspondent, for whom I suspect English is a second or even third language. This person wrote:

“You are mentioning birds very often in the Hooting Yard. But I think you know little of bird life in truth. You say of cormorants, linnets, crows, ducks and some others but it is of a limited field, Mr Frank Key. Do you know others?”

I am afraid to say there is a grain of truth in that, as readers of an ornithological bent have probably realised. Anyway, what brings these two points together? Yesterday I referred to the statue entitled Taxonomy of Swans which is cluttering up my bathroom. Doing research for the sculpture, I discovered that apparently “the taxonomy of ducks, swans and geese is in a state of flux”. (I am afraid I cannot recall the source of that splendid quotation.) I fretted over this, and extended my reading from library books to the internet. And it was while I was scampering through various bird-related sites that I chanced upon the World Checklist of Passerine Birds and the World Checklist of Non-Passerine Birds.

Could I have been more excited? I doubt it. Will you be as excited as I was? Possibly. One thing is for sure—my anonymous correspondent will be pleased to note that in future he or she is less likely to read here about cormorants, linnets, crows and ducks, for they will be supplanted by tiny tyrant manakins, buff-throated foliage gleaners, nukupuus, drab hemispinguses and tinkling cisticolas, among many, many others.

*NOTE :The Cobwebs Of Weltschmerz is, of course, the title of an incomplete and unpublished novel by Ah-Fang Van Der Houygendorp, the Sino-Dutch funnelweb spider expert and one-time husband of Mrs Gubbins. See October 2004 for more information about him.