[Trade Journal]
Publication: Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers
London, England
vol. 2, p. 446, col. 1
NOVEL APPLICATION OF TELEGRAPH WIRE.
Mr. L. Schwendler showed at the meeting of the Asiatic Society a crow's nest made of pieces of telegraph wire twisted together in a most ingenious and knowing fashion. He said that lately such nests had been found frequently, and that it seemed as if the crows of India benefited by the introduction of Western civilisation, and were by no means behind the age. As long as the crows built their wire nests on trees and buildings only, he, as a telegraph engineer, would not object, but often they selected telegraph posts, between which and the telegraph wires they built these wire nests, causing what are known as "earth" and "contact," and interfering with communication. Crows, however, were by no means the only animals interfering by their domestic arrangements with overland telegraphy. Wasps built their mud nests in the porcelain insulators, causing, in rain and dew, leakage from the iron to the ground. Birds of prey frequently dropped dead fish and other offal on the wires, causing contact. These were all frequent sources of temporary interference with telegraphic communication on overland lines, and they, combined with many other facts not necessary to mention, seemed to show that it would be a very great advantage to use subterranean telegraphs instead of overland lines. — Calcutta Englishman.
