The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-07-23
MAKE
w BlRDSEYE NAPLES.
Maine Man Tells How They Do 1t
Has 1000 Birds Making Vale
able Timber for Him Now.

PArrEN. Me, July 22.-"When a man has
spent eighty years and more tnan s'o'ooo
| in studying the ways of wild things said
Greenleaf Davis, ut would seem as IL he
should know something about the nature Oh
animals and birds, but l am oonged 10
own that am more Ignorant to-day imam
I was when my father came here from Mas
sachusetts and built sawmill in 1874
when was years old. He left all his
property to me. including miles OF timber
lands and money in bank, and have spent
ali Of it except this spot where my camp
stands.
.What have | accomplished? That
depends very much upon how you look at
II The way the world sees things, my life
has been wasted. Instead of being rich
T am very poor, so poor that the town
keans me in the amshouse free of cost
through the cold weather. l have almost
assured myself of very many facts, though
| am not absolutely certain concerning
any except TWO.
.The first is that every woodpecker
that digs a hole in a tree for nest chooses
the east side ! have spent more than nan
a century studying woodpeckers. within
half a mile OF. my camp are VIZ WoooPecherr
nests. | have the largest collection OF
hem is tame or more than half domest-
Gated, | have spent as much as $3.50 in a
wear buying meat to feed the woodpeckers'
Nobody living or dead mas STUDIED the
| woodpackers so much as l have, but the
sum of my knowledge is very small.
II know that these birds insist on having
the holes that enter their nests face the
east because I have waited until the eggs
we're laid in the holes in posts l had put
out and then turned the posts about.
have done this when the birt:s were away,
and never has any bird continued to in,
cubate her young when the hole was changed
from due east think the woodpeckers
choose an eastern aspect for the reason
that they can know when the sun Is up,
They are all early risers, and having no
alarm clocks they make sun dials OF their
nests.
mercial Use. For hundreds OF years lumber
men and cabinetmakers have been studying
to learn what causes maple wood to assume
the notified and spotted form known as
.birdseye.' In hundred rock maple
trees perhaps one is birdseye. Nobody
can pick the specific tree out by inspect
ing the bark or the manner of growth
You may have to chop two hundred trees
before you find one, but 1T Is worth the
4Fact is, the woodpeckers make all the
birdseye maple there is in the world. In
fying about the woods they come to q
rock maple tree Una! yielus very emee'
sap in the season when sap. is running
Most birds like sweets-w oodpeckers art
very fond of sugar. Having found a tree
yielding a large per cent. of sugar the
birds peck holes in the trunk and then
stand against the bark and drink the raj
as it ooZes out.
After the sap has ceased to flow and tn,
trees have leaved out new wood and barl
form in those small holes, The pecking ant
sap gathering goes on for years until tn
tree, having given up 80 much sap to thu
birds, begins to furnish fluid containing lea
sugar. In ten or twelve years after tn
Dir DIS quit tree the holes G4e all grown up