The Value of Room.
Build all your cages as roomy as your available space and material will allow, and study to make their interiors as like the natural haunts of the imprisoned animals as is practicable. Avoid all attempts at ornamenting the cages, for no cage looks better and more artistic than the strictly practical one, built solely with a view to usefulness.
Clean sand will be found very useful for spreading over the floors of the wooden-bottomed cages, and a large box of it, kept in a dry place, will add greatly to your ability to keep things tidy.
Be particular about the nesting of your mice and squirrels; frequently remove the old nests and burn them, at the same time supplying the little creatures with a fresh lot of clean cotton, wool, fine grass, or even paper, and they will arrange a new bed for themselves out of the fresh material.
You will soon discover that all beasts prefer to keep clean, and have methods of their own by which they endeavor to keep themselves neat and presentable, without the use of soap. Any disagreeable odor proceeding from their cages simply means neglect on the part of the keeper of the zoo.
CHAPTER IV.
A BACK-YARD FISH-POND.
Although the writer has made frequent journeys to the wonderful dreamland of his boyhood, and has ruthlessly taken and brought to earth many of its air-castles for the use of the boys of the present day, there are still a number of things left, and among the latter is the back-yard fish-pond, which we shall now seize, and, bringing the idea down to your back-yard, make it water-tight, so that you can stock it with real live fish.