The times., 1900-12-31
SECRET OF BIRD's-EYE MAPLE.
A WOodsman's Discovery If Work
for Tame WoOdpeckers.
(From the New York sun. }

(From the New York SUM-
Patten, Me.-After having spent more
than sixty years and more than SO. .OO0 in
hunting bears and studying the ways OF
wild creatures. Greenieaf Davis has be-
gun TO raise tame wodpeckers, with the
purpose OF using them to convert ordi-
nary rock naples into the rare and cost
ly wood known as bird's-eye maple. Mr.
Davis is more than eighty years Of age.
Sixty years ago he inherited mill prop
erty valued at $4,000 which he soon
sold and then he went to the woods under
the side of Mount Katahdin. Here he
built log camp and spent much OF his
time on the trails of bears and Indian
devils, of which he has killed more than
any other man in Maine.
1t has been Mr.. Davis belief that nc
creature should be kept in captivity more
than a month. If the creatures he caught
chose to remain with him after that
period they were welcome to such fare
as he could afford to give. If they wanted
to go, the doors were open. IN this way
he has tanned squirrels, muskrats, and
woodchucks until they and their offspring
nearly overran his camp. With birds he
has been less successful, because most OF
them went away South at the annual mi
grations, and when they came back, If
any did come back, they were ungrateful
that Mr.. Davis could offer. He has two
crows. one of which is more than thirty
years old which have stayed by him and
never sought the society Of their kind.
Two robins lived with him for three years,
but perished one cold night when the
camp fire went out. His great success
has been won with woodpeckers, of which
he now has nearly 100. They are OF the
hairy and the downy species in about
RNh nj
these in number and esteem are the red
headed sap suckers. which pick round
holes in the bark of trees, making them
look like the bottom of an old styled
colander
AS these woodpeckers did not migrate
Mr.. Davis had company the year round
He put up boxes for them to occupy as
homes and in a few years the maple
grove back of his camp was filled with
birds The yellow hammer is the only
species of the woodpecker family that will
live without insect food. and after the
sapsuckers grew very numerous Mr.. Davis
had much trouble to feed them. He dug
up the ant hills and sifted the sand out
to get the insects for mis- birds, but in
spite of his labors, the red-headed wood
peckers made sad havoc in his sap or
chard digging holes in his best naples
and impairng the flow of sap from which
much of his living was derived.
1t was impossible to XIII the birds be-
cause of the company they afforded, anc
II was equally impossible to live without
the income from the sap orchard. The ole
man spent weeks in his grove watching
the result of the wounds which the birds
inflicted on the bark. AS the scars healed
he noticed that there was a bright rec
spot left on the wood directly below The
wound. If the tree was badly marked the
red spots we're more numerous than they
we're on trees which had suffered less
while on trees which the woodpeckers haC
not visited there were no traces of red.
About this time it occurred to him that
as the beautiful markings of bird s-eye
maple were due to the red spots in the
wood, aud as nobody had ever been able
to account for them, it was possible that
the variety of maple known as bird 's-ey G
might owe its origin to the work OF the
woodpeckers. II SO. he had made dis
coyery that had baffled botanists for
years. He had also learned how to make
his colony of tame woodpecHers self-sup-
porting.
BY mixing the ants, which he sifts from
the sand, with paste formed from elm
bark boiled down to a thick batter, he can
smear the trunks of thirty naples WITH
such food as the woodpeckers require and
while they are getting meal from the