The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1881-12-02
FOES OF THE TELEGRAPH.
HOW BUFFALOEs, BEARS, MONKEYS, ELE-
PLANTS, WORMS AND SPIDERS DE-
sTROY THE WIRES

sTROY THE WIRES.
/ If you will kick OF pound on a telegraph
/ pole or place your ear against one on win
/ dy day, what will the noise remind you of ?
| A hive of bees Precisely. So it does the
bears in Norway. Bears are passionately
/ fond Of honey, and when in one Of the wild
districts Bruin hears the humming of the
wires he follows the sound to the post where
il is lOudest, and begins to tear away the
stones, heaped round the poles in rocky soil
to steady Uhrm, in order to get at the hive
which be imagines to be there. In his disap
pointment and disgust he usually leaves say
age marks of his claws in the wood. Nor is
he the only victim of the wires. In the Flee
trio Exhibition at Paris they show the top of
thick pine telegraph post through which a
wOOdpecker has drilled hole several inches
in diameter. The bird had apparently
perched on the pole and taken the humming
Of the wires for the buzzing of a nest Of in
Sects in the wood, and had fet himself man
fully-or birdfully-tO dig them out Wolves
will not stay in Norway where a telegraph
line has been built. I was formerly the Gus
tom to protect farms by planting poles
round them strung with cards, something
ike rabbitsnares, and gradually the wolves
came to respect these precautions, so that a
line stretched across the neck of peninsula
would protect the whole district. The
wolves take the telegraph Tor new and i'm
proved snare, and promptly leave the coun-
try when a line is built. On our own tree
less plains the buffalo halls the telegraph
poles as an ingenious contrivance for his own
benefit. Like all cattle he delights in
scratching himself, and he goes through the
performance so energeticaily that he knocks
down the post. An early builder of tele-
graph lines undertook to protect the posts
by inserting brad-awls INTO the wood, but
the thick-skinned buffa'o found the brad
awl an improvement, as affordlng him new
sensation, aud scratched down more poles
than ever. In Sumatra the elephants are
Systematically opposed to telegraph lines,
and at least twenty times a year make raids
on them. In May, 1876, the elephants tore
tore down the poles for a distance Of several
fuTlongs and hid the wires and insulators in
the cane jungle and for three nights i'm sue
cession they repeated the performance as
regularly as the TepaireTs rebuilt the line
during the day. The monkeys and apes are
wires foI swings and trapezes ana carry of
the glass insulatOrs as valuable prizes then.
when the repaiIer goes to correct the mis-
chief, he may be pounced upon by tiger or
driven up the post by a mad 5uffala In
japan the special enemies of the telegraph
are the spiders, which grow to an immense
size and avail themselves Of the wires as ex-
cellent framewoyks for their webs Sothick
are the cords the japanese spiders spin that
often, especially when they are covered'with
dew; they serve to connect the wires with
each other or the ground, and so to stop them
from working. In the sea the wires are not
any safer, as a small worm has developed IL
self since cables came into fashion which
bores its way through iron wire and gutra-
percha, lets in the water and so DESTROYS a
line worth millions of dollars. When a great
storm comes on i'm the centre Of the ocean
and the cable breaks while it is being laid OF
threatens to break, no one is alarmed. They
fasten the cable to a buoy and como back af-
forwards and pick it up, or if it is at the bot
tom Of the sea they drop a dredge. with
mile or so Of rope, and fish out the precious
thread, as large as one of your fingers, al
most as easily as you would FISH up a penny
from the bottom of a tub Of water with the
tongs. But the little worm no bigger than a
needle is more formidable than the elephant
on shore or the hurricane at sea Youth and
Pleasure.