Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 115, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 1919 — CAN EAT WAY THROUGH LEAD [ARTICLE]

CAN EAT WAY THROUGH LEAD

Beetle of Remarkable Power Would Make Man Much Trouble If It Existed in Quantities, d /robably most pel-sons who read Jie newspaper story of die discovery by a Santa Barbara (Cal.) telephone engineer of an Insect that eats Its way through sheet lead thought It in the same class with the ancient hoax about “the worm that eats steel nails.” which was perpetrated about a quarter of a century ago and still reappears at Intervals. One of the editors of Engineering News, however, ha.s seen the insects, a number of which are held In captivity In lead boxes with glass covers, to see how long it will take them to bore their way to freedom. The insect is a slender black beetle ahont a quarter of an inch long, with hard wing covers and of innocent and placid demeanor. It is said to light bn a lead-covered telephone cable and bore a tiny round hole through the lead sheath and the paper Insulation down to the copper. Possibly it believes the cable to be a part ot a tree or vine into which it is accustomed to bore holes, ai»i so it proceeds to bore through the lead as it would through the bark. Some persons think that concealment is its motive; others that the boring process is preliminary to egg depositing. The lead borers have been heard of in South Bend, Ind., and Rockford, Ill.; in Omaha. Tacoma, Portland and San Diego; in Florida and in Australia. The fact that numbers of them have been found in old lead foil tea packages leads oue to suspect that the family is of oriental extraction. — Youth’s Companion. ' -