The perches are easily put in. It is better to have one cross one as well as two or three from front to back.
When you have your little doors made, and neatly hinged with wire, the greater part of the work is finished.
The polishing and varnishing, and nest and nest material, I will speak about presently. The different types of cages shown in [Figs. 3] to [5] need no verbal explanation, the pictures speaking for themselves.
III.—NESTS AND NEST-BOXES—THE GERMAN METHOD OF BREEDING—HUTCHES FOR RABBITS, GUINEA-PIGS, RATS, AND SQUIRRELS.
It will be high time now to return your friend Smith’s cage, for the probability is that, as the breeding season will soon commence, he will want it himself. I gave full directions just now for the completion of your own cage, with one or two little items excepted. Take a glance before you carry it back, then, at the neat way small fastenings and hinges are made for the doors, and little handles to pull out the partition and the false bottom, and the solitary big one on the top for the purpose of lifting the cage. Very natty and neat, are they not? and all made out of wirework. Pliers and pincers, and a little handiness on your part, are all that is wanted, but it is better you should observe how things are done. The wire loops that hold the glass fountains are fastened in the same way—holes made, the wire put through and doubled down behind so that it shall not pull out, and the whole thing is ready.
Two tiny two-inch square or oval tin drawers to slip in at each corner of the lower front of the cage are infinitely better to hold seed and food generally, than those long wooden world-old drawers with holes in them, which make such beautiful receptacles for dust and vermin.
As to the nests, you have plenty of option. These can be bought. There are wooden ones to hang up on a nail at the back of the cage, tin ones, basket or rope ones, and also those which you can make yourself out of half a large cocoanut-shell. The basket and rope nests, it is said—I have not tried them and do not mean to—do very well if previously steeped in petroleum and dried. The tin and earthenware nests are neatly lined with soft felt; a bit of an old hat does very well properly shaped, steeped, and moulded in.
The cocoanut-shell will suit every useful purpose. You can make it yourself, lining it well with warm lambs’-wool. Fasten a loop of wire round the top edge to join in front, and finally extend to form two hooks to fasten the nest on to the cage.
