Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-01-05

Of using them to convert ordinary rock
| naples into the rare and costly wood known
! as brdseye maple. Mr.. Davis fs more than
| eighty. Sixty years ago he inherited e mill
| property valued at $1,000 which he soon
| sold, and then he went to the woods under
| the side of Mount Kathahdin. Here he
Quilt log camp and spent much of his
| time on the trail of bears and Indian devils
! OF which he has killed more than any other
| man in Maine.
1t has been Mr.. Davis belief that no
creature should be kept in captivity more
than month. If the creatures he caught
chose to remain with him after that period
they We're welcome to such fare as he could
anord 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 success
rul, because most of them went away south
at the annual migrations, and when they
came back. IL any did come back they
were ungrateful enough to prefer their lib
erty to anything that Mr. Davis could OFFER
he mas two crows, one OF which is moro
than thirty years old which have stayed by
MIN and never sought the society of their
KIND TWO robins lived with him for three
years. but persisted 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 equal num-
bers, but more than both Of these In num-
Der and esteem are the red-hea6ed sap
suckers. which pick round holes in the bark
OF trees, making them look like the bottom
or an old-styled colander.
As these woodpeckers did not migrate Mr.
DAVIS had company the year around. He
put up boxes for them to occupy as homes
and In few years the maple grove back
OF his camp was filled with birds. The vel.
low 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 trou-
a mn anf q
and sifted the sand out to get the insects
for his birds, but in spite of his labors the
red-headed woodpeckers made sad havoc
In his sap orchard, digging holes in his
best naples and impairing the flow Of sap.
from which much Of his living was derived.
1t was impossible to kill the birds. because
equally impossible to live without the in
come from the sap orchard. The old man
spent weeks in his grove watching the re-
suit Of the wounds which the birds IN
noticed that there was a bright red spot left
on the wood directly below the wound. II
the tree was badly marked the red spots
trees which has suffered less. while on trees
which the woodpeckers had not visited there
were no traces of red.
About this time It occurred to him that AZ
the beautiful markings Of birdseye maple
were due to the red spots in the wood, ana
as nobody had ever been able to account
FOR them. 1t was possible that the variety
u iHdpiS AnoWu a. UiIuSey0 nl8HI owe ll9
origin to the work Of the woodpeckers. II
20 he had made a discovery that had bar-
led botanists for years He had also
earned how to make his colony Of. tame
voodpeckers self-supporting
By mixing the ants, which he Sits from
he sand with a paste formed from elm
lark boiled down to a thick batter. he can
mear the trunks. OF thrifty naples with
uch food as the woodpeckers require, ana
While they are getting a meal from the bark
heir bills are boring new holes In the
rees that shall transform ordinary maple
rood. worth no more than $12 thousand
Get, into birdseye maple that sells any,
where for so and $50 Thousand, ana the
ealers cannot get all they want at those
rices.