USA > Illinois > Kendall County > History of Kendall county, Illinois, from the earliest discoveries to the present time > Part 24
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CLIMBERS.
These have their toes in pairs-two before and two behind. There are two cuckoos, distinguished by their bills-one being yellow and the other black. The dif- ferent woodpeckers are known as red-headed, red-breasted, yellow-bellied, hairy, and golden-winged. The last one is called a "sap-sucker," because he pecks holes around trees, for insect traps. He does not mean to touch a
415
CLIMBERS AND PERCHERS.
drop of sap, but comes around by and by, like a fisher- man looking after his nets, and picks enough insects out of the bark holes to make him a meal. He is a well meaning fellow, but does not always exercise good judg- ment as to how near together his baits may be, and now and then is in danger of girdling the tree.
PERCHERS.
The ruby-throated humming bird (our only species), gums lichens together for its nest; and the swift, or chimney swallow, does the same with straws and mud. It is distinguished from other swallows by shorter toes and tail deeper forked. The whippoorwill is often heard but seldom seen. He rarely ventures abroad until dusk and then skims along noiselessly, taking his supper of moths and flies. He is nearly related to the night hawk, which makes the booming sound in his evening descents. The latter bird is distinguished by a white line under the throat. Both were anciently called goat-suckers, from the notion that they milked the goats and cows; but it was flies, not milk they were after. The kingfisher makes her nest in a hollow stump or tree by the water side, but the ancient Greeks invented the pretty fancy that she nested on the sea and the waves were quiet until her young were hatched. And so the bird's Greek name, Halcyon, came to mean peace. The kingbird is known as the tyrant flycatcher, for his courage in attacking hawks and large birds when they come near his nest. Two crested flycatchers and two peewees belong to the same family. The peewee is called the phebe bird. Robin redbreast is the center of the robin family-com- prising, besides, the bluebird, two wrens, and two very
416
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
shy thrushes, the wood thrush and hermit thrush. The true thrush, or mocking bird family, comprise that musi- cal prodigy, the " brown thrasher," as the boys call him, the prying little cat bird, the pugnacious house wren, and one or two wren cousins. They are the smallest of the family, and make an astonishing amount of music for so small a body. Next to the thrush and the wren and the robin for song, come the numerous warbler fam- ily, comprising the smaller song birds. They are mostly distinguished by their colors, as yellow-throated, black- headed, black and yellow, yellow-rump, bay-breasted, black-throated, blue, yellow-backed, chestnut-sided, yel- low-breasted, blue-winged, golden-winged, orange- crowned, &c. Some are creepers, viz, little wood birds that creep around the trunks of trees. Also the red- start, a little chit as large as a wren ; the scarlet tana- ger, red with black wings, and the summer red-bird. In the swallow family are the bank swallows and martins. The butcher bird hangs up grasshoppers to dry on thorns. The vireos are fly-catchers, plain little birds with a tiny hook on the end of the bill. The nut-hatches are wood birds, like the creepers, only they run up and down trees without hopping, and peck at the bark like woodpeckers. The titmouse is a small bird, like a dumpy little wren. The finch family comprise the sparrows and buntings. They all have short, thick bills, for crushing seeds. The several sorts of sparrows are distinguished by minute differences in color or habits. The name bunting means mottled with dark spots, like millet seed. The black-throated bunting is one of the commonest birds in our pastures, and is familiar to everyone. The bob-
417
SCRATCHERS AND WADERS.
olink is called the rice bunting at the south. He is the size of a snowbird, with black breast and gray back, but is not often seen here. In the bobolink family are also the meadow lark, the orioles, the red-winged blackbird, the cow blackbird, and the common blackbird, or, prop- erly, rusty and purple-necked grackles,-so called from their noise, " gra, gra." The crow, too, got his name from his note. He is a great glutton, and his moral sense is not cultivated, but he is useful as a scavenger. The blue jay is a lively and handsome relation of his.
SCRATCHERS.
The friendly barn dove and the pensive and beautiful mourning dove are familiar to all. The latter is allied to the turtle dove of the Scriptures. The wild pigeon is migratory, and does not stay with us. Prairie chick- ens are also familiar birds. Also the quail; said to be the only bird that will eat the chinch bug, and if that be true. farmers have a particular interest in his preserva- tion. Wild turkeys were here in abundance when the country was new, but they are now rarely seen.
WADERS.
Largest of all the waders is the well known sand hill crane. Then comes the great blue heron, four feet high ; the white heron, three feet high, and the green heron, fourteen inches high. Cranes differ from herons in hav- ing the hind toe placed higher on the leg than the front ones. The bittern is a brown bird with shorter legs and a heavier neck than the heron. The name means "bull voiced." It is also called stake driver. It lives about ponds, and ventures abroad only during the night. On
418
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
account of its mysterious habits and deep cry, it was re- garded with superstitious fear in olden times. Some of the later philosophers believed its cry was produced by putting its bill into a hollow reed ! The plover family includes two or three plovers and the killdeer. The plover differs from the snipe in its shorter bill and having no hind toe. There are several species of snipes, cur- lews, and rails ; generally found about marshes.
SWIMMERS.
In the Goose family we have the Canada, or common wild goose, and the brant, or white fronted goose-a white ring at the base of the bill. In the Duck family we have eight or ten species of wild ducks, all migratory. The merganser is a fish duck with saw teeth. The hooded merganser is a smaller species, with a topknot. the teal is the smallest of the ducks, and is very shy. It has a bill as long as its head, while the bill of the widgeon, another species, is but half as long as its head. The little grebe, of the loon family, is sometimes seen here. His feet grow out of his back, making him look like a diminutive penguin. Our total list of birds num- ber nearly two hundred separate species.
REPTILES.
In the turtle family, the painted turtle and snapping turtle in water, and the prairie tortoise on land, are common. Among lizards, the blue-tailed skink, and other small species, are occasionally found ; but they are harmless. The common green frog is handsome and agile ; the toad is neither ; yet warty and homely as he may be, he is useful, for when the farmer's day's work is done, out comes Mr. Toad and carries on the
419
SNAKES, FISHES AND INSECTS.
war against the bugs and flies as long as his brilliant eye can see.
SNAKES.
We have but four poisonous serpents ; the copperhead, and three species of rattlesnake, and all are nearly extinct. None of the others have poison fangs. The largest is the water snake, or milk snake, because accused by our forefathers of sucking the cows. The smallest are the little green snakes of summer and the gray snakes of autumn. Next larger are the striped or garter snakes; then the adders, &c. The name of adder has a venomous sound, because the poisonous vipers of Europe are so called; but no such viper is known in this county. All our snakes but the four poisonous ones are comprised in the family Coluber, Latin for ser- pent, and are marked by the flattened head, no poison fangs, and a double row of scales under the tail.
FISHES
are divided into spine-finned and soft-finned. All our common river fish, but perch and bass, belong in the last order : suckers, sunfish, catfish, pike, pickerel, shin- ers, red-horse, &c. The muscalonge is a large kind of pike, sometimes caught in Fox river. Specimens have weighed thirty pounds.
INSECTS.
Our stock can only be outlined. One-fourth of them are included in the hymenoptera, or insects whose wings -for they are classified by their wings-are a transpar- ent membrane. Here are bees, wasps, hornets, ichneu- mon flies, &c. The latter are the Ishmaels of the insect world. £ Mr. B. D. Walsh says : "The spider preys
420
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
upon the fly, the mudwasp preys upon the spider, and the ichneumon fly preys upon the mudwasp. So skillfully is the whole system adjusted-a check here and a check there, and a counter-check upon both in another place- that in a state of nature it is only in some special sea- sons that a particular insect becomes unduly numerous."
Dragon flies and May flies belong to the nerve-winged order, neuroptera. The former is called snake-feeder, musquito hawk and devil's darning-needle. A young lady teacher once on a time cleaned her school-room of flies by shutting a dragon fly in the room.
Butterflies and moths belong to the scaly-winged order, lepidoptera, and there are a thousand different kinds in the Northern States alone. Butterflies are the humming birds of their race. They fly by day, while the moths fly by night. The butterfly caterpillars always have sixteen legs. This metamorphosis of a groveling worm having jaws, into a soaring butterfly with no jaws, but a tongue to feed on the nectar of flowers, is a won- derful figure of the resurrection. The Greeks noticed it, and the same word-Psyche-signified either a soul or a butterfly. Flies, gnats and musquitos belong to the two-winged order, diptera; fleas, also, of which the old poet Tusser thus writes :
" While worm wood hath seed get a handful or twaine, To save against March to make flea to refraine ; Where chamber is sweeped and wormwood is strown, No flea for his life dare abide to be known."
The sheath winged order, coleoptera, embrace the beetles, lady bugs, fire flies, &c. The scarabee, or roll- ing beetle, so common along our roads, is the famous sacred beetle, worshipped by the Egyptians. Its thirty
421
BEETLES AND SPIDERS.
toes were to them a symbol of the month ; its rolling ball a symbol of the revolving sun, &c. The burying beetle, with its fetid smell, is one of the most useful we have. Spring beetles, water beetles, ground beetles, death watches, meal worms, curculios, &c., belong here. Some of the water beetles are known as "whirligigs," and are said to live on dead insects found floating on the surface of the water.
In the hemiptera or half winged order we have harvest flies, tree hoppers, plant lice, squash bugs, and other out- rageous creatures. The grasshopper, cricket and locust families are the orthoptera, or straight winged. The katydid is the little sister of the great green grasshop- per. The locust family have shorter antennæ or feelers. All these orders of insects are represented with us, and some of them, most injurious to vegetation, are well worth the study of every farmer : The tree borers, with their sharp cutting mandibles ; the curculio and weevil beetles with their minute horny beaks ; those skunks of the insect world, the chinch bug; the voracious army worm and cut worm moths-the two grubs are much - alike, but the cut worm has little shining black dots, each armed with a hair.
The order of spiders, arachnida, include the spiders proper, ticks, &c., down to garden mites, cheese mites, ·and annoying little parasites of many kinds. True to their head, the spider, they are every one of them rapa- cious and devouring.
Our land crabs are in the order of decapods, or ten footed, and our snails, and slimy but gentle and harm- less little slugs found in gardens and cellars, are gastero-
422
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
pods, or stomach footed. Among worms proper, the most common is the useful and defenceless little earth- worm which the boys use for bait. Below all this is the vast field of life which can only be traversed with the microscope, but which well repays the labor of the in- vestigator.
CHAPTER LVJ.
OUR PLANT LIFE.
OUNTY FAIRS are meetings of what is in part our botanical society, with special ref- erence to cultivated grains, grasses and flowers ; but in this chapter it is intended to treat mostly of our wild or natural vari- eties. Our own agricultural society, it may be said, held its first meeting at Newark in the fall of 1853. Officers : President, J. W. Mason ; Vice Presidents, L. B. Judson and William Townsend ; Recording Secretary, J. J. Cole: Corresponding Secre- tary, A. M. Sweetland ; Treasurer, Isaac Beebe. The annual oration was delivered in the Baptist Church by John West Mason.
TREES
we have from the soft basswood, called linden in Europe, to the hard ironwood or hornbeam. Oak, maple, ash, cherry, elm, &c., are found all over the Temperate Zone. Hick-
423
TREES AND SHRUBS.
ory and walnut are natives of this country. So is the cottonwood, though now found in other countries. In France, hats and felt goods have been made of its cot- ton, but the manufacture did not pay. It is a brother of the common poplar. The balsam poplar, or balm of Gilead tree, is the medical member of the family. A balsam made from its buds is exported under the name of tacamahac. The willow family-from the tall white willow to the bending, basket making, osier willow of the brooks-belong to the same order. Wild apple and plum trees formerly abounded in the groves.
SHRUBS.
A shrub is properly a low tree with one stem : a bush has several woody stems from the same root. One of our commonest shrubs is the sumach, which our mothers used for brown and yellow dyes, and which foreigners are apt to call " shoemakers' trees." A variety of it is the dreaded poison ivy which climbs over fences or up the trunks of trees. It yields a yellowish, milky juice. Some persons can handle it with impunity, while even the smell of it is poisonous to others. The bitter sweet is another poisonous vine, found on old fences or in thickets. It keeps its show of red berries all winter. The woodbine, or wild honeysuckle, is another well- known climber; also the wild grape vine, which, with the abundant raspberry, blackberry and gooseberry bushes, and crabapple, thornapple and plum trees of olden time, supplied the pioneers with fruit. First, in the spring, is the red-bud, with its scarlet buds close to the twig ; the buffalo or service berry, with white flowers is next after. Other shrubs, are black cohosh, blue cohosh,
424
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
or squaw-root, leptandra, or black-root, and the prairie red-root, called New Jersey tea, because the spunky Jerseyites used it for that purpose at the time of the Revolutionary tea trouble in Boston. But dearest bush of all is the familiar hazel, intwined as it is with boy- hood's memories. The filberts we buy in the shops are cultivated hazel nuts.
Of wild flowers and weeds we have a greater number than can be enumerated here. The following are the most common and most interesting. The object is not to give a perfect list, but to interest local naturalists in making collections of their own.
WOOD PLANTS.
Adder's tongue, or rattlesnake violet, a pretty spring flower ; blood-root, a white flower that appears very early in the spring on the hillsides : cinquefoil, or five finger, a yellow spring flower, in barren woods, some- times so thick as to cover the ground with a yellow car- pet ; columbine, a yellowish pink flower, on hillsides, about the month of June ; Dutchman's breeches, or chil- dren-in-the-wood, a white flower, changing to pink, grow- ing in the thickets early in April, it will bear trans- planting to the home garden; yellow violet, blooms in the woods nearly all summer; Jack-in-the pulpit, or Indian turnip, a curious inhabitant of the wood, that . bears for its fruit a bunch of bright scarlet berries ; man- drake or May-apple, has a white flower and ripens in August ; the medicinal properties of the fruit were well known to the Indians, who used it freely ; prickly pear, a thick, fleshy plant, with prickles instead of leaves, puts out its white blossoms in July, grows on very stony
425
PLANTS AND PRAIRIE FLOWERS.
land. Other kinds are, maidenhair, Greek valerian, or bluebells, ladies' slipper, or yellow moccasin flower, Sol- omon's seal, hawksweed, wood sorrel, brachyelytrum, a grass with long seed spikes, growing only on one side of the head.
MARSH PLANTS.
Sweet flag, blue flag, and cat's-tail flag. The latter are often used for fishing torches. Wild oats grow in ponds. Horse tail, a relic from the coal period. Pond lily ; wild horehound ; jewel weed ; boneset, or thorough- wort, one of the ague specifics of the first settlers. Arrowhead, flowers in June. Sensitive plant, a yellow flower seen along sloughs in August. Cardinal flower, a scarlet flower appearing in September. Button snake root, a species of flag ; the root steeped in milk is a cure for rattlesnake bites. On the edges of the long, narrow leaves are little spines like the rattlesnake's tooth.
PRAIRIE FLOWERS.
About our dooryards we find chickweed ; the common plaintain, from whose humble spikes we gather canary seed ; and the low mallows, which furnished our play - house cheese when we were boys. From the tall mal- lows a good article of cloth has been made, and was exhibited at the Illinois State Fair, in 1871. Along our roads we find the white-flowered May weed; the taller smart weed, called water pepper in the old country ; the still taller wild mustard ; pigweed, ragweed, bindweed, fireweed, ad libitum. Along by the fences are sunflower thistles, dandelions, burdock, and other docks, with their great leaves like elephants' ears ; bunches of cat- nip waiting to be picked and hung up in the woodshed, 28
426
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
and maybe a bunch of tansy ditto, reminding us of the Easter tansy puddings among the queer old customs of ancient times. The ground ivy climbs the fence ; the deadly nightshade, with its black berries, stands sullenly on its footstalk in the edge of the brush, and further on are noxious purslane and pokeweed, and the tall mul- lein. The leaves of the latter were used by the Indians to staunch blood. Down by the creek are the sand burrs, which are such a terror to barefooted boys going
after the cows. Out in the meadow the first flower in bloom was the little hepatica, and on a northern expos-
ure, too, and almost before the frost was out. Then soon came those humble members of cultivated families, the sweet buttercups, sisters of the bachelor's buttons ; and the blue violets, belonging to the aristocratic pansies. These were followed by phloxes, foxgloves, marigolds, tiger lilies, anemones, cowslips, blazing stars, lion's hearts and golden rods, as well as the humbler straw- berry, horsemint, white clover, milkweed, and the fra- grant pennyroyal. The lion's heart and golden rod are four or five feet high, and bloom about harvest. Spinach, with its pointed leaves, and stramonium or Jamestown weed-called "Jemsen weed "-are tall plants. The leaves of the first are used for greens, and the leaves of the other were smoked as a primitive cure for the asthma. Other plants are the ground cherry ; the sour sheep sorrel, belonging to the family of docks ; the upland rattlesnake weed, with its little pink and purple flowers ; lobelia, or Indian tobacco; the fetid skunk cabbage; the common nettle; and the rosin or compass plant-so called because the leaves generally
427
NATIVE GRASSES.
stood north and south. There are two kinds ; one, broad leaf and smooth stem, and the other, narrow leaf and fuzzy stem; but the boys can get their chewing gum from either. Among the prairie flowers now rarely seen was the cup flower, that did not bloom until frost came.
GRASSES.
Our prairie grass is made up of many different kinds, all of which have been enumerated by botanists, but as most of them have no common names they would not be interesting reading. The botanical names, however, are well worth learning, and indeed are necessary to be learned if one has a desire to know what is around him. It is not difficult. Let the work of collecting and of learning the names of the collection go on together. The specimens throw light on the text book, and the text book throws light on the specimens, and in the double reflection the subject grows more and more interesting and absorbing every day. But for such use if you buy a book, get a complete manual, whatever the science may be. If you are through school and are busy, you will scracely find time to study elementaries, and will be dis- appointed at not finding what you want in them. .
Red top grass and blue joint are our most valuable native grasses. There are also meadow grass, yard grass, agrostis, &c. Herds grass, orchard grass and blue grass have been imported. Rye grass, spear grass, white grass, and others, are natives, but coarse and tall. Knot or couch grass, tickle grass, darnel, canary grass, cord grass, and chess, are noxious weeds. The seeds of the last make flour blue. A number of sedge grasses grow
428
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
about ponds and sloughs. There are in Illinois about one hundred species each of upland and slough grasses.
FLOWERLESS PLANTS.
These are (]) Ferns, of which there are some thirty or forty species in this county. They are all small; are found in humid soil in the groves, and a few are parasites. (2) Mosses, with stem and roots. There are many
species. They abound in meadows and pastures, and sometimes stock will eat them. The reindeer lives on them. They help to fill up bogs, protect the roots of plants from the cold, and do many other kind offices.
(3) Lichens, without stem or leaves, merely an aggre- gation of vegetable cells. They appear as spots on trees and stones, and stains on old walls. They are the com- mencement of vegetation.
(4) Fungi, the scavengers of the vegetable world. Mushrooms and toadstools come under this head, but with them we take leave of the larger plants, and plunge into the apparently endless microscopic avenues of diminutive vegetation, leading us to molds, mildews, &c.
The molds are minute fungi, like patches of fine cob- web. The mildews are yet a little lower in the scale, as the white mold on leaves, &c. Then follow smut, rust, blight, and other diseases that vegetation is heir to. The fungi are in their sphere what the vultures and wolves are in theirs; they prey fiercely on everything that has not life enough to resist. And so the record of our county possessions begins with the seen and passes into the unseen, and we leave off with kingdoms before us as extensive as the kingdoms we have left behind us.
Acknowledgements are due to Hon. J. D. Caton, Ot-
429
CLOSING CHAPTER.
tawa ; A. M. Ebersol, Floral Home, near Ottawa ; John F. and George H. Steward, Plano ; and C. A. Freeman, M. D., Newark, for materials for this and the preceding chapter. J. F. Steward has made a nearly complete collection of the ferns of this county, and G. H. Steward the same of our birds; while each has a large geological collection, illustrating every period in the history of the earth.
CHAPTER LVII.
FAREWELL.
N THE history of this, as of other rural counties of the west, there have been four well-marked stages : First, the wide wil- derness, with solitary cabins here and there on the sheltered sides of the groves, and the occupants toiling at vast disadvantage to obtain the necessaries of life. Second, the era of claim speculation; the groves encircled with clearings, and occasional shanties far out on the prairie ; men with a little ready money roving about in search of bargains, and settlers without money holding on with a tight grip and struggling hard to retain their rudely fenced lands. Third, the era of rented farms. Most of the intermediate lands between
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HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
the original claims, as well as many of the claims them- selves, were purchased and held by non-residents and tilled by farmers not in the country early enough to take up farms, and not wealthy enough to buy them. The usual terms were for the tenant to give one-third of the crop. It was a time of hard work and slow progress. But about the time of the coming in of the railroads, produce increased in value, and cash rents were common, and then we began to enter upon : Fourth, the present era of independent farmers ; most of them owning the soil they cultivate. The struggles for existence are over, and we are freed from the pioneer strivings for bread ; but only that we may strive in
A HIGHER SPHERE.
When a man is paying for his farm, all the members of his body must work. Eyes, hands, feet, thoughts, all must work for the great object of securing a home. But the home once secured and rendered comfortable, eyes, hands, feet and thoughts have leisure for other and better things.
So it is with the members of society as with the mem- bers of the man. We begin where our fathers ended. We must end where we desire the generation following to begin. To follow the lead of covetousness, and strive to add house to house, or field to field, is but to tread over again with less cause the steps our fathers trod, and our labor does not count. We are doing pioneer work with- out the pioneer necessity. Every man should ask him- self the question, looking it squarely in the face : " For what purpose am I released from pioneer struggles ?"
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