But, ‘What a lot!’ you will say, and ‘what a deal of money they will cost!’ Yes, but think of the many useful things you can make with those tools, quite independent of either cage or hutch.
And now as to the materials. What are these? I answer in two words, wood and wire. The wood may be almost any sort, but it must be very well seasoned, else as soon as it gets wet you will find the bottom of your cage coming off, or the back bulging out, and the whole concern gaping in the most unseemly way. The parts to be polished and stained may be hard wood.
Fig. 1.—Simple Breeding Cage.
The cage I have had [figured] is an ordinary two-roomed breeding-cage. It might have been a trifle easier for you to have tried your ‘’prentice han’,’ as Burns calls it, on perhaps a show-cage to begin with, but I cannot forget that the cock canary may have sometimes to be separated for a time from the hen; hence that partition with the hole in it, a hole that may be closed.
Some cagemen recommend this to be a fixture, but do you not think with me that if the partition can be withdrawn, so as to make both cages into one big one when required, it is better?
II.—CANARY BREEDING-CAGES, GERMAN AND ENGLISH.
I have already said that the wood a cage is made of is a matter of secondary importance. The body may be pine, for instance, and the front parts any kind of ordinary hard wood—mahogany to wit. The cage ([Fig. 2]) which is now before us is one of the German kind, manufactured by Mr. Abrahams, naturalist, St. George Street East. The nest has, however, been put in the drawing in the wrong compartment.
Fig. 2.