of the work, and incidentally learned all the weak spots in the structures, a knowledge which they were not slow to use when the sheds and coops were finished, and occupied by creatures fascinatingly interesting to crows and dogs.
But you boys are lucky fellows! Everything that youth wants is now on the market at reasonable prices. Wire-cloth and galvanized wire-netting with double-twisted selvages, with meshes of any size to suit the occasion, and wire of any dimensions to suit the purpose, are now manufactured especially for the building of cages.
Galvanized Iron Wire-Cloth or Netting
comes in rolls, with either square or hexagonal mesh; in other words, the openings between the wires are in the form of a square, or are six-sided.
Fig. 23.—Temporary Frame of Cage.
Wire is numbered from the very heavy, No. 000, which is over a third of an inch in diameter, to No. 40, which is only .00725 of an inch in diameter. It is not very likely that you will use either of these wires, unless your collection includes some very large and strong beasts and some very small insects. The wires which you will probably need will be between No. 14 and No. 22. No. 14 is eighth-tenths of an inch in diameter, and No. 22 is a little more than two-tenths of an inch in diameter.
The Mesh
is the distance from centre to centre of the wire. No. 5 mesh means five meshes to the lineal inch—that is, a piece of netting five inches long will contain twenty-five meshes. The “space” means the opening between the wires—that is, the distance from wire to wire.