The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1882-01-04
FOES OF THE TELEGRAPH.
How BuffasOes, hears, Monkeys, EEe.
plants. Worms, and Spiders de-
troy the Wires.

If you will kick or pound on a telegraph
pole, or place your ear against one on a
windy day, what will the noise remind you
of A hive of bees ? Precisely. So it
does the bears in Norway. Bears are pas
sionately fond Of honey, and when in one Of
the wind districts Bruin hears the humming
of the wires, he follows the sound to the
post where it is loudest, and begins to tear
away the stones heaped around the poles in
rocky soil to steady them, in order to get at
the hive which he imagines is there. In his
disappointment and disgust he usually leaves
marks of bis claws in the wood.
Wolves will not stay in Norway where a
telegraph line has been built. 1t was form
erly the custom to protect farms by planting
poles around them, strung with cords, some
thing like rabbit shares, and gradually they
came to respect these precautions. so that a
line stretched across a peninsula would pro
tect the district. The wolves take the tele-
graph for a new and improved snare, and
promptly leave the country where a line has
been built.
On our own prairies the buffalo halls the
telegraph poles as an ingenious continuance
for his W benefit. Like all cattle he de-
lights in scratching himself, and he goes
through the performance SO theoretically
that he knocks down the pole. An early
builder of telegraph lines undertook to pro-
tect the poles by inserting brad-awls into the
wood. but the thick skinned buffalo found
the brad-awl an improvement as affordlng
him q new sensation, and scratched down
more poles than ever.
In sumatra the elephants are systematlcal-
" opposed to telegraph lines, and at least
twenty times a year make raids on them. In
Nav. 1875. the elephants tore down the poles
for a distance of several furlongs and hid
the wires ano insulators in the cane jungle,
and for three nights in succession they re-
heated the performance as regularly as the
repairers rebuilt the line during the day
| The monkeys and apes 1are about as form
liable enemies, as they use the wires Ior
swings and trapezes, and carry of the glass
insrlators as valuable prizes then he may
be bounced upon by a tiges OF driven up the
pole by a mad buffalo.
In Japan the special enemies OF the tele-
graph are the spiders which grow to an I'M
mense size. and avail themselves OF the wires
a. excellent frame work for their webs. 80
thick are the cords the japan csc spiders spin
hat often, especially when they are covered
with dew, they serve to connect the WIS
with each other on the ground, and SO to SO.
them from working.
In the sea the wires are not any safer, as
q email worm has developed itself since Ca
hles came into fashion which bores it way
through iron. wire gutta percha, lets IN water
and 40 DESTROYS a line worth millions of dol
lars. When a great storm comes on the cen
ire If the ocean, and the cable breaks while
it is being laid, or threatens to break, no one
10 alarmed. They fasten the cable to a buoy
and come back afterwards and pick it up !;
or If it is at the bottom Of the sea they drop
. dredoe With q mile or so of rope and pick
up the precious thread as large as one OF
vmnr fingers. almost as easy as you would
fish up a penny from the bottom OF a tub
fnll of water with the tongs. But the little
worm. no bigger than the end of q needle,
ia more formidable than the elephant on
shore or the hurricane at sea.