Peer ee NC oe ee Oe ON oe Ui oe Pelt 9 
SANDHILL CRANES AND THE KENNICOTT FAMILY 
by Walter B. Hendrickson 
The Sandhill Crane is especially identified with the Chicago Academy 
of Sciences because it is featured in the magnificent museum exhibit that 
depicts the Chicago area as it was before the coming of the white man. 
The Sandhill Crane is also associated with the family of John A. Kenni- 
cott, one of whose sons, Robert, was a naturalist and a founder of the 
Academy. 
In recent years the Sandhill Crane has received attention in nature 
magazines and books as a semidomesticated bird. The principal account 
of the life and habits of the crane, both in the wild state and as a domesti- 
cated creature is Dayton O. Hyde’s, SANDY: THE TRUE STORY OF A 
RARE SANDHILL CRANE WHO JOINED OUR FAMILY (1968). 
The experiences of the Kennicotts with the Sandhill Cranes were 
related in an article in The Prairie Farmer in 1849 by John Kennicott. 
The Kennicotts lived a few miles north of Chicago on what is now Mil- 
waukee Avenue. Kennicott, a physician who lived in Louisiana for some 
years, joined his brother there and together they ran a nursery from 
which they supplied the settlers on the surrounding prairies with orchard 
and shade trees and yard and garden shrubs. John soon became so much 
involved in horticulture that he gave to it more time than he did to doctor- 
ing. Among his activities was serving as horticultural editor and writer for 
The Prairie Farmer, a leading agricultural periodical published in Chicago. 
Dr. Kennicott once wrote, “We have a new and very efficient assistant 
gardener—a young ‘Sand Hill Crane.’ With his long flexible legs, and 
snake like neck, he can reach the top of our rose bushes and the way the 
bugs suffer is a caution to insects in general. The Sand Hill Crane is a 
huge feeder, and rather noisy when hungry—but is easily domesticated 
and very ageil in the garden—driving out hens and dogs as well as 
devouring bushels of bugs, worms, grasshoppers, etc.” The item was pub- 
lished with an introductory note by the editor: ““The Sand Hill Crane is 
not mischievious, is he? He will not eat chickens, kittens, and young 
puppies, will he? He will not make himself too plenty (sic) in and around 
the house, will he?” (Vol. 9, p. 236). 
Dr. Kennicott answered these questions in the next number of The 
Prairie Farmer: 
About that Sand Hill Crane and other matters, I fear that all 
your shrewd queries about the Sand Hill Crane must be answered to 
his discredit. Dogs and cats are his aversion, and he permits no poul- 
