Kendall County, Illinois - Chapter 55: Our Neighbors, 1877

Chapter 55: Our Neighbors

'T IS not intended in these chapters to give a complete list of all the animals and plants found in Kendall county. It could as well be done as not, for the list is made, but the names alone of every species would more than fill up the allotted space. The object is simply to direct young readers especially to the treasures that lie around them, and incite them to a better acquaintance with their fellow inhabitants of the air and the soil. Hugh Miller began to be a geologist by studying the stones in the quarries where he worked ; and there are few who would not in spite of themselves become enthusiastic naturalists by studying the weeds and flowers that grow by the roadside, and the living creatures that creep, or walk, or fly in grove and meadow. A few dollars spent in books, and a few hours' study at odd times in mastering: the classification and scientific names, and the rest will be a continuous delight. As each new plant or insect is added to the collection, the cry will be: ''Ah, I know you! you belong to such a family." In our enumeration we will begin with ruminants, and with the of which the bison is our only wild representative. It is commonly called the buffalo, but true buffalos are found only in eastern countries. Bisons were formerly here in immense droves, and forty years ago, in the eastern part of the county, their bones could be picked up by the wagon load. They are the same genus as the German aurochs.

Deer Family

The elk, called moose and wapiti by the Indians, disappeared from this locality about 1818, but deer are still occasionally found. Our species is the Virginia deer - distinct from the black-tailed deer of Missouri, the stag or red deer, and flillow or yellow deer of England, the rein-deer of cold countries, &c.

Bear Family Dog Family

DOG FAMILY. Prairie wolves were at first very abundant, then became scarce, and are now becoming more numerous again. They are the coyotes of the Mexicans, and allied to the jackal. The larger gray wolf has been seen here. The red fox burrows here, but they are not numerous. The gray or southern fox also occasionally puts in an appearance.

Weasel Family

The common weasel is brown in summer and white in winter. The mink is his cousin. The otter was once here, and their slides (they had a practice of sliding down hill) were found on the banks of the streams. The skunk gets his classical name, Mephitis^ from his odor. He is in zoology what carbonic acid gas is in chemistry. Skunks are said to be peculiarly subject to hydrophobia, at which times they are unable to emit their odor, but their bite is fatal. Commonly, they are harmless, and even useful in destroying grubs, &c.

Squirrel Family

SQUIRREL FAMILY. The common fox squirrel, the gray or black squirrel, (for the color varies) and the flying squirrel, are all abundant here. The last is most active in the night. The chipmuk is a lively little fellow, known to everybody. The striped prairie squirrel ought to give up his name of gopher, as the true gopher is a larger animal, and is found further west; the same may be said of the gray gopher. They are beautiful animals, with only the one bad trait, of not being able to understand that they should not dig up seed corn. The woodchuck, or ground hog, emigrated here after the whites came. In early days he was accounted good eating, and his hide was made into whip-lashes and purses. " The squirrel and gopher tribe pass the winter in a semi-torpid state. They roll themselves up with the head under the breast.

Animals And Birds

and are as cold as if dead ; but heat quickly revives them. The chipmuk alone is said to lay up a winter's stock of provisions. The beaver is a native of our county, but the trappers extirpated him many years ago.

Rat And Mouse Family

The brown rat and house mouse are of foreign extraction, and follow the industrious white man wherever he goes. There were none here when the country was first settled. The muskrat, or musquash, is allied to the beaver, and is still common. The meadow mouse is abundant everywhere. The long haired meadow mouse is less often seen. The white footed wood mouse may be distinguished from the house mouse by its white belly and feet. The jumping mouse has long hind legs, and travels like the kangaroo, by jumps. It lives in the woods. The dormouse lives on trees, and is allied to the squirrels. The comprises the mole proper, a soft furred little animal the size of a small rat, that always lives under ground ; and the long snouted shrew mouse. The latter is much the more common.

we have a great variety, and they form one of the most interesting parts of the animal kingdom. They have been divided according to their nests into miners, as the bank swallows ; masons, as barn swallows ; cementers, as chimney swallows ; carpenters, as woodpeckers and nut-hatches ; weavers, as the oriole ; tailors, as the blue yellow back warbler ; basket makers, as the vireos and red winged blackbird ; felt makers, as the gold finch and hummingbirds ; platform builders, as hawks and pigeons ; ground builders, as ducks, &c. ; dome builders, as the quail and meadow lark ; those which make no nest, as the nighthawk and whip-poor-will, and those which lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, as the cuckoo and cow blackbird. But it is more common to divide them according to their general habits into the following orders :

Birds Of Prey

Of the vulture family, the ungainly and bare-headed turkey buzzard is the only representative that comes to our borders. The falcon family comprise the eagles and hawks. The bald eagle has been known to nest here. The red- tailed buzzard is our common hen hawk. Then we have the rough-legged hawk, with feathered legs ; the band-tailed hawk, black hawk, marsh hawk, pigeon hawk, red-shouldered hawk, swallow tailed hawk, or kite, and fish hawk, or osprey. In the owl family we have the screech owl, or barn owl, great horned owl, long-eared owl, snowy owl, and day owl.

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 different 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 drop of sap, but comes around by and by, like a fisherman 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 judgment as to how near together his baits may be, and now and then is in danger of girdling the tree.

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 boominc' sound in his evenino; 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 - comprising, besides, the bluebird, two wrens, and two very shy thrushes, the wood thrush and hermit thrush. The true thrush, or mocking bird family, comprise that musical 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 family, comprising the smaller song birds. They are mostly distinguished by their colors, as yellow-throated, blackheaded, black and yellow, yellow-rump, bay-breasted, black-throated, blue, yellow-backed, chestnut-sided, yellow-breasted, blue-winged, golden-winged, orangecrowned, &c. Some are creepers, viz, little wood birds that creep around the trunks of trees. Also the redstart, a little chit as large as a wren ; the scarlet tanager, 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 difl'erences 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- 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, properly, 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.

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 chickens 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 preservation. Wild turkeys were here in abundance when the country was new, but they are now rarely seen.

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 having 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 account of its mysterious habits and deep cry, it was regarded 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, curlews, and rails ; generally found about marshes.

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 number nearly two hundred separate species.

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

Snakes, Fishes And Insects

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 serpent, and are marked by the flattened head, no poison fangs, and a double row of scales under the tail.

are divided into spine-finncd and soft-finned. All our common river fish, but perch and bass, belong in the last order : suckers, sunfish, catfish, pike, pickerel, shiners, red-horse, &c. The muscalonge is a large kind of pike, sometimes caught in Fox river. Specimens have weighed thirty pounds.

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 transparent membrane. Here are bees, wasps, hornets, ichneumon flies, &c. The latter are the Ishmaels of the insect world. Mr. B. D. Walsh says : " The spider preys 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- seasons 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 wonderful 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 wormwood 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 rolling beetle, so common along our roads, is the famous sacred beetle, worshipped by the Egyptians. Its thirty 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, mealworms, 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 hemipte7'a or half winged order we have harvest flies, tree hoppers, plant lice, squash bugs, and other outrageous creatures. The grasshopper, cricket and locust families are the orthoptera^ or straight winged. The katydid is the little sister of the great green grasshopper. The locust family have shorter antennse 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, arac^mc^a, 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 rapacious and devouring.

Our land crabs are in the order of decapods, or ten footed, and our snails, and slimy but gentle and harmless little slugs found in gardens and cellars, are gastero- pods, or Stomach footed. Among worms proper, the most common is the useful and defenceless little earthworm 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 investigator.