24 



CHAPTER V. 



CAGES AND CAGE-MAKING. 



It is quite possible to go to an extreme ; to build with such strict regard to the line and 

 plummet and to conduct our little establishment with such painful order and regularity, as 

 seriously to interfere with the comfort of the objects under our charge. We have a wholesome 

 aversion to the whole family of anti-macassars, and they are a large tribe. Yet we do not wish to 

 be understood as objecting to a well-ordered breeding-room — anything but that ; it is only French 

 polish and a sort of clock-work mechanism which admits of no deviation from a set line that we 

 object to when they obtrude themselves to the exclusion of the comfort and well-being of the 

 birds. "Anything will do for a cage." No, anything will wc^ do for a cage. The anything-will-do 

 system is bad from end to end, and is born of a careless slovenliness which goes about with holes 

 in its stockings. There is a fitness in things, and a harmony which satisfies the judgment and 

 pleases the eye as much as Dutch gold and stucco are repellant to it. If there be one place more 

 than another in which we like to see handsome cages, it is in a working-man's cottage. They help 

 to cover his walls and represent something, amply repaying the pains bestowed in making them 

 and in keeping them clean. A canny wife, a few bonny bairns, a clean hearth, a four-post bed, a 

 chest of drawers, an eight-day clock, a muling hen or two, a dog and a cat, and what more can 

 a working-man want in this vale of tears .'' 



In fitting up a breeding-room with cages, space can sometimes be economised by utilising 

 recesses. We refer to this as belonging to the sphere of "contrivances;" and we are told that 

 a good contriver is better than he that hath a large appetite. Recesses are also sometimes 

 available in rooms other than those set apart for birds, and may even be the only available space 

 at command. They are easily adapted to, or rather converted into cages, with little trouble 

 and not much expense. We must assume that there is no paper on the wall ; if there be, it can 

 readily be removed by wetting it, and the plaster laid bare. No better natural sides and back 

 for a breeding-cage can be devised than a dry wall. Set off with a square the exact places to be 

 occupied by the shelving, which should be eighteen inches apart and made of half-inch ordinary 

 yellow pine, the freer from coarse knots the better. If the recess be reasonably square, the shelves 

 can be fitted in tightly without injuring the wall in any way beyond the driving in of a few 

 nails to support them or to fix small ledges on which the ends may rest. Each shelf must, in 

 any case, be bevelled off to the exact angle of the particular niche into which it is intended it 

 should slide, and must be flush with the wall all round, and especially at the back. Any spaces 

 which occur between the shelf and the wall, be they ever so small, must be filled in with thin 

 plaster of Paris, for the same reason that cage-bottoms must be made flush with the back and 

 sides of the cage — viz., to prevent dry sand from running through, and also to prevent insects from 

 harbouring in them. This is, perhaps, the most difficult part of the business, but it is of the 

 utmost importance that it should be attended to. However deep the recess may be, it is not 

 advisable that the shelving be more than about twelve inches from back to front ; but if it be 

 not very deep, and it is wished to bring the cage fronts out in the same line as the jamb of the 



