TERMITES, THE DESTROYERS 79 



Their most remarkable and unexpected feat 

 was to bore through the lead sheathing of tele- 

 phone and telegraph cables laid underground and 

 even through the sheathing of cables carrying a 

 strong electric current through the locks of the 

 Canal. In one place alone fifty feet of cable had 

 to be replaced. 



One company has laid a cable across the 

 Isthmus about a foot underground. They find 

 that where the line runs close to timber the 

 termites are likely to make their way over to it. 

 The little destroyers eat through the outer water- 

 proof coverings of rubber and lead, half a dozen 

 holes to the foot. They eat out the sheathing 

 of the bundle of wires that make up the 

 cable, and if they find "dead wires" without 

 an electric current, they follow these along, 

 stripping the separate wires of their wrapping 

 as they go. This performance seems to be pure 

 mischief, since, so far as we know, they cannot 

 digest metal or rubber. Possibly they use bits 

 of it for nest or road building, for it is not much 

 harder than some of the clay that they mine. 

 It seems to me more likely that they have the 

 habit of chewing anything they find and, like 

 some children, do not use judgment in what they 

 eat so long as it is conveniently in reach. 



Soft wood — for example, pine brought in from 

 the north for building — is quickly eaten and 

 ruined, unless it is soaked first in creosote poison, 



