Now, if you are going to have a handle, get as small an iron one as will comfortably lift your cage, and screw it on to C, as near sleeping-boxes as possible; then, as you will find the sleeping-box side will be the heavier, you might get a bar of old iron from an ironmonger or smith 18 in. long, between 1⁄4 in. and 3⁄8 in. thick, and broad enough to make your cage weigh equally; have three holes drilled in it, and screw it underneath the cage in front.
A few remarks more about the cage and its inhabitants, and I shall have finished.
The cage must have sawdust strewed on the floor and hay in the nests; the former must be changed once a day, and the latter every other day, or at least twice a week. If you cannot get sawdust anywhere else, an oilman will let you have enough to last you a month for twopence. In such a cage as I have described a ‘boar’ and six ‘sows’ may be kept. When a sow is about to have young it should be put in a small cage by itself, and as soon as the young are old enough to eat and run about they may be turned with their mother into this big cage. Perhaps they will get chased about a little at first, but they will not be hurt, and will be all right by the next morning. As soon as they are a month or six weeks old they should be removed elsewhere. Only one full-grown boar should be kept in a cage.
When mice are first put in such a cage as I have described, the ladder appears steep for them, but they soon get used to it, and reach their nests in two or three bounds from the ground.
Heus! incaute puer—silvis latet ursus in altis