Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1881-12-22
FOES OF THE TELEGRAPH.
How RunTal0es, Bears, Monkeys,
Elephants, Worms and SPi-
ders Destroy the Wires.
Youth nndPlnnsurs.l

Youth and leasurel
If you will kick or pound on a tele-
graph pole, or place your car against
one on a windy day, what viii the
noise remind you OFF A hive Of bees ?
Precisely. So it does tho bears in
Norway. Bears are ~passionately fond
of honey, and when in one Of the
wind districts Bruin hears the hum
ming of the wires, he follows the
sound Of the post where tits the loud
est, and begins to tear away the stones
heaped around the poles in rock soils
to steady them, in order to get at the
hive which he imagines to be there.
In his disappointment and disgust he
usually leaves marks Of his claws on
the wood.
Wolves will not stay in Norway
where a telegraph line has been built.
1t was formerly the custom to protect
farms by planting poles around them
strung with cords, something like rab-
bit snares, and gradually the wolves
came to respect these precautions, SO
that a line stretched across the neck
Of q peninsula would protect the
whole district. The wolves take the
telegraph for a new and improved
snare, and promptly leave the country
when a line Is built.
On our treeless plains the buffalo
halls the telegraph pole as an ingeni-
Gus continuance for his own benefit.
Like all cattle, he delights in scratch
ing himself, and he goes through the
performance so theoretically that he
knocks down the post An early
builder of telegraph lines undertook
to protect the posts by inserting brad
avis into the wood, but the thick
skinned buffalo found the brad-awls
an Improvement, as affording him a
new sensation, and scratched down
more poles than ever.
In Sumatra the elephants are sys-
tematically opposed to telegraph lines,
and at least twenty times a year make
raids on them. In May, 1876, the
elephants tore down the poles for q
distance Of several furlongs, and hid
the wires and iasulators in the cane
Jungle, and for three nights in
succession they repeated the perform
ance as regularly as the repairers re-
built the lines during the day. The
monkeys and apes are about as for
midable enemies, as they use the wires
for swings and trapezes, and carry off
the glass insulators as valuable prizes;
then, when the repairer goes to correct
the mischief, he may be bounced upon
by a tiger, or driven up the post By a
mad buffalo.
In Japan the special enemies Of the
telegraph are the spiders, which grow
to an immense size, and avail them
selves Of the wires as excellent frame
work for their webs. So thick 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
itself since cables came into fashion
which borcs its way through iron,
wire and gutta-percha, lets in the
water, and so destroys a line worth
millions of dollars. When q great
storm comes on in the center Of the
ocean, and the cable breaks while it is
being laid, or threatens to break, no
one is alarmed. They Easten the cable
to a buoy and come back afterward
and pick it up; or, lift is at the bot
tom of the sea, they drop a dredge,
with q mile or so of rope and fish out
the precious thread, as large as one Of
your fingers, almost 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.