Crystal Palace International Electric Exhibition 1881-82

25 I would also give some observations on the effect on. wolves produced by suspended telegraphic wires ; but I must first remark that these phenomena are of the most complicated nature, and. appear problematical from a natural science point of view. I will confine myself to stating a few facts and will leave it to everyone to form his own opinion on them. My attention had already been directed to this when there arose a question of placing at the disposal of the Government funds necessary for the main, great telegraphic lines. It was then. said, that a member of the Storthing had declared that, although the part of the country which, he represented had. no direct interest in the proposed line, he would vote for it all the same because he supposed that by it the wolves would be driven away from those districts where the line would pass. It was a fact that wolves at this time were a great scourge to the country, and that during the winter they used to descend, in bands from the mountains into the valleys, where they killed in great numbers the cattle of the peasants; and on this account, in several parts of the country, the precaution had "been taken to form, a cordon round the cow-houses and farm-buildings by mean of supports connected together with ropes; and. it is an established fact that the wolves, starving as they were, dared not pass under the ropes. The same means were made use of to rid an island (really rather a peninsula than an island), from the unwelcome visits of these voracious beasts. After a battue a rope suspended from stakes was stretched across the isthmus, which, resulted eventually in freeing the peninsula from the wolves’ visits. The most remarkable thing, however, is that after the great telegraph system was commenced, across the mountain plateaux and along the principal valleys of the country (some twenty odd years ago) that wolves have entirely disappeared, and have not since come back; and it is very rarely that one now hears of a solitary specimen being seen. However, as I have said above, naturalists will deny that in this can. be found the true cause of the disappearance of wolves from this country, and. will attribute their departure either to the ravages of an epidemic or to the long wanderings of wolves, although it can by no means be proved that any similar thing has happened before in this country, which seems altogether to furnish, so many conditions favourable for the harbouring of wolves. C. NIELSON, Chief Director. Christiania, June 15th, 1881.