"Will you be pleased, sir, to register your name?" was the modest request of mine host, as, having _settled the bill_, with foot in stirrup, I was about mounting my steed at the door of the little hostlerie of Shelbyville the morning after my arrival. Tortured by the pangs of a curiosity which it was quite evident must now or never be gratified, he had pursued his guest _beyond the threshold_ with this _dernier resort_ to elicit _a_ name and residence. "Register my name, sir!" was the reply. "And pray, let me ask, where do you intend that desirable operation to be performed?" The discomfited publican, with an expression of ludicrous dismay, hastily retreating to the bar-room, soon reappeared gallanting a mysterious-looking little blue-book, with "Register" in ominous characters portrayed upon the back thereof. _A_ name was accordingly soon despatched with a pencil, beneath about a dozen others, which the honest man had probably managed to _save_ in as many years; and, applying the spur, the last glance of the traveller caught the eager features of his host poring over this new accession to his treasure. {107} The early air of morning was intensely chilling as I left the village and pursued my solitary way through the old woods; but, as the sun went up the heavens, and the path emerged upon the open prairie, the transition was astonishing. The effect of emerging from the dusky shades of a thick wood upon a prairie on a summer day is delightful and peculiar. I have often remarked it. It impresses one like passing from the damp, gloomy closeness of a cavern into the genial sunshine of a flower-garden. For the first time during my tour in Illinois was my horse now severely troubled by that terrible insect, so notorious all over the West, the large green-bottle prairie-fly, called the "green-head." My attention was first attracted to it by observing several gouts of fresh blood upon the rein; and, glancing at my horse's neck, my surprise was great at beholding an orifice quite as large as that produced by the _fleam_ from which the dark fluid was freely streaming. The instant one of these fearful insects plants itself upon a horse's body, the rider is made aware of the circumstance by a peculiar restlessness of the animal in every limb, which soon becomes a perfect agony, while the sweat flows forth at every pore. The last year[206] was a remarkable one for countless swarms of these flies; many animals were _killed_ by them; and at one season it was even dangerous to venture across the broader prairies except before sunrise or after nightfall. In the early settlement of the county, these insects were so troublesome as in {108} a great measure to retard the cultivation of the prairies; but, within a few years, a yellow insect larger than the "green-head" has made its appearance wherever the latter was found, and, from its sweeping destruction of the annoying fly, has been called the "horse-guard."