EXTRACT FROM A LETTER, 209 



NOTE XXXVI. 



EXTRACT FROM A LETTER ADDRESSED TO 

 D\ E. A. JENTINK 



Mr. J. D. PASTEUR, 



dated Padang Sidempoean, July Ist 1890. 



»I take advantage of this opportunity to send you 

 a small box containing a piece of a telegraph pole (of 

 djatiwood, Tectona grandis) with two Wood-peckers, Picus 

 analis, from Java, Kediri Residency. These birds make, 

 as you see, rather large holes in the teakwood, which is 

 as hard as iron , near the point where the isolator has been 

 attached: apparently because they mistake the well known 

 buzzing of the quavering wire-threads of the telegraph for 

 the gnawing and boring of Insects. 



I should not have mentioned this fact if it was not such 

 a great rarity. For on the Paris electricity exhibition in 

 1881 there was to be seen as a great rarity a telegraph pole 

 perforated through and through by a hole having a dia- 

 meter of 7 centimeters: this remarkable pole was sent by 

 the Director of the Norway telegraphs. The administration 

 for a long time was uncertain to what cause ascribe this 

 damage done to poles which for the rest were entirely 

 sound, till at last by a mere chance the Wood-peckers 

 were seen at work. 



In Norway too has been observed another not less remar- 

 kable damage caused to telegraph poles and also for a long 



^otes from tlie I-ieyden JMuseum, Vol. XII. 



14 



