| Summary: | 78 Wells County History lers or spoonbills. Also grouse, prairie chickens, killdeers, jack- snipes, cormorants, pelicans, crows, swans, blue herons, loons, grebes, coots, hawks, owls, screech owls, snowy owls, eagles, nighthawks, buzzards, sandhill and whooping cranes. The quacking and squawking of the ducks and geese around the watering places during the nesting periods was almost deafening at times. There were many kinds of birds: the Dakota song sparrow, the ground sparrow, the snowflake, the bobolink, the buffalo- bird, the whip-poor-will, the curlew, the catbird, the robin, the meadow lark, several varieties of blackbirds including the red- winged and yellow-headed kinds, the lark bunting, often erroneously called the white-winged blackbird, the arctic towhee, the oriole, the skylark, Lapland longspur, bluebird, peewee, white- winged junoo, wren, thrush, bluejay, wild yellow canary, Franklin gull, and mourning dove. There were myriads of butterflies of every hue. Grasshoppers were always numerous but never became a pest. The house fly was present but not numerous. The deer fly was common especially in the Coteau regions. The common garter snake and the lizard were the only local representativees of the reptile family. The jack-rabbit was plentiful and much hunted and used for food. They were not then infected with blister. Field mice were common but rats were unknown. Bats were often seen. Wild strawberries grew in abundance and were of excellent flavor. Every buffalo wallow or pothole where the water stood in the springtime was bordered with beds of strawberry vines. In the very early spring the pasque flower blossomed and soon gave the prairie the appearance of a dense, pale, purple colored velvet carpet. To see these downy flowers pushing up through fresh falls of snow on protected hillsides was always a pleasant and welcome harbinger of spring for they brought delight to the prairies before the last winter winds had roared farewell. The Pasque Flower has been adopted by the legislature as the state flower of South Dakota where it is affectionately called the Gosling Plant, owing to its downy appearance. Opinions differ as to how it came by its name of pasque flower. Some Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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