The Penn's Grove record., 1882-01-28
Foes of the Telegraph.
How Buifaloes, Bears, No keys, Elephants,
Worms and Spiders Destroy The Wiz g.

If you viii kick OF pound on a teIe-
graph pole, or place your ear against
one ona windy day what gilI the noise
remind you Of? "A hive of bees? Pre-
cisely. SO it does the bears in Nor
way. Bears are fpassi9nately fond of
honey, and when, in one of the wind
Districts, hruin hear. the humming of
tie wires, he follows the sound to the
post where it is loudest, and begins to
tear away the stones, heaped around
the poles, sin rocky soil, TO steady
them, in order to get at the hive
which he imagines to be there. In
his disappointment and disgust, he
usually leaves savage marks of his
claws in the wood.
. NOR, is be the only victim of the
: wires. In the electric exhibition at
Paris,5 they show the top of Il thick,
pine, telegraph post, through which a
wpodpecker had Drilled q hole several
inches in diameter. The bird had APP.
parently perched on the pole, and
taken the humming Of the wires for
the buzzing OF a enest of insects in the
wood, and had set himself manfully,
or b%irdfullyTto dig them out.
Wolves will not stay IN Norway
where q telegraph line has been built.
1t was formerly the custom to protect
farms by planting poles around them
strung with cords, something like
rabbit snares, aud gradually the
wolves came to respect these pfecau-
tons, so that a line stretched across
the neck of a peninsula would protect
the whole district The wolves take
the telegraph for a ntw ana improved
snare, and promptly leave the country
when a line is buiit.
On our own. t~reeless plains, the
buffalo halls the telegraph pole as an
ingenious contrivance tor his own
benefit. Like all cattle, he delights
in seratc ing himself, ami he goes
through the performance so energeti-
calIy that lie knocks down the post.
Aa early builder of telegraph lines
undertook to protect the posts by in
serling hrad.a avis into the wood but
the thick skinned buffalo found the
bfad-avl al improvement, as sfford-
ing MIN y new sensation, and scratch
ed down o poles than ever.
In sua atra, the elephants are sys.
teuaticahy opposed to telegraph lines,
and atleast twenty times a wear, make
raids on them. In May, 1876, the ele-
plants tore down the poles for a dis-
lance of several furlongs, and hid the
wires and |insulators ia the canejun-
giles, and for three nights in success
sion, they repeated the performance
as regularly as the repairers rebuilt the
line during the day.
The monkeys and apes are about AS
formidable enemies, as they use the
wires for wings and trapezes and
carry offthe glass insulators as valua-
BILE prizes then, when the repaire1c
goes to correct the mischiesGsTe m<y
be pounced upon by y tigeTTor driven
up the pest by a mad buffalo.
In Japan the SPECIAL enemies of she
telegraph are the spiders, which grow
10 an Immense size, and avail them
selves of the wires as excellent frame
works for their webs. So thick are
tue webs the japanese spiders spin.
that often especially when they are
covered with dew, they serve to con.
meet the wires with each other or the
ground, and so stop them from work
ing.
In the sea, the wires are not any
safer, AS a small worm has developed
Itself, since cables came into fashion.
which bores its way through ire
and gutta peFcha, lets in the water,
and 50 destroy a line worth millions
Of dollars. When a great storm
comes Oh in the center OF the ocean.
and the cable breaks while il is being
laid, or threatens to break, no is
alarmed. They iasten the cable to a
buoy and come back afterward and
pick it up or lift is at the bottom of
the sea, they drop a dredge, with a
mile or so OF rope, end fish oat the
precious thread, as large as one Of
your fingers, almost rs ssily as you
would fish up a penny from the boil
tom of a tub of water, with the tongs.
But the little worm no bigger than a
needle, is more formidable than the
l elements or the hurricane.