Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 200, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1912 — Is Kansas City Woodpecker a Slave to Science? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Is Kansas City Woodpecker a Slave to Science?

KANSAS CITY, MO.—Out on Campbell street, the neighborhood la treated each morning to what sounds like the roll of a distant drum or the far away clatter of the trip-hammer on a new skyscraper. It is an elusive sound, now appearing to come from some remote distance, then permeating the whole atmosphere as If dose at hand. The noise was something of a mystery at first, but at last the source of It was discovered. The drummer Is a woodpecker, one of the red headed variety. His drum is one of those galvanized Iron boxes linemen put, for reasons best known to themselves, just beneath the croes pieces of telephone poles. It Is now several weeks since Mr. Red-head began his musical development. Alighting by chance one morning on the tin box, he, probably as a matter of habit, tried his hard beak on the material which formed his resting place. Apparently the result surprise, ed him. As the resonant response to his tapping rang out he stood erect a'nd looked about him In surprise. Mr. Redhead flew away. But the result of his experiment lingered In bls memory. Here was the'Sir Isaac Newton of the feathered world. Why

should the apple fall to the ground, or rather why should his pecking in that particular spot cause all that noise and no hole? He would return and investigate again. He did. Not only once, but half a dozen times that day was the air vibrant with the sound of his hammering. A night's sleep did not erase the strange phenomenon from his thoughts. Early the next morning his rub-a-dub-dub, delivered almost too rapidly for the separate blows to be distinguished, showed that he was of the stuff that made James Watt marvel at the power of the steam in the teakettle. Every day since that time Mr. Redhead has delved, into the mysteries of science, but hasn’t delved perceptibly into the stubborn surface of the echoing box. It is observed that he always hammers In exactly the same place.