Harper's Outdoor Book for Boys. Joseph H. Adams
in the side of this compartment, so that the rabbits may enter it from either floor. A drop front, on hinges, will permit the hutch to be partially closed in very severe weather, but when it is pleasant the front should be raised and propped up with a stick, in the ends of which hooks are arranged that will fit into screw-eyes driven into the lid and along the side of the compartment, as shown in the illustration.
In the end of the hutch, opposite the bottom of the stairway, a feeding-doorway six inches square should be cut with a compass saw, and a door hung on hinges. This hutch should be supported on stout sticks or posts embedded in the ground for at least two feet, and it should be thirty to forty inches above the ground. Across the open runs, galvanized wire cloth, with half to three-quarter inch meshes, is to be nailed fast with staples. With a few coats of paint on the outside, this hutch will present a very good appearance.
The rabbit-house (Fig. 21) is a large, one-story structure, in which a family of rabbits can live very comfortably. It is thirty-six inches long, twenty-four inches wide, eighteen inches high at the back and twenty-two at the front. At one side a compartment is made twelve inches wide, and at the outer side a door seven by nine inches is hung and fastened with a lock. This house is supported on four posts, two or three feet above the ground, and when painted it should look very homelike to a rabbit’s eyes.
A house of this same description, but larger, may be made for a monkey, a fox, an opossum, a raccoon, or even for bear cubs. For the latter, bars will have to be used instead of the wire cloth, for the bears would soon tear away the lighter material.
Squirrel Cages
For squirrels, chipmunks, and white rats very good cages can be made from wire cloth, tin boxes, and wood, and in the illustration of a squirrel cage (Fig. 22) a simple house is shown.
To make it, a base-board is cut twenty-eight inches long, fifteen inches wide, and one inch and a quarter thick. Ten inches from one end the edges of the board are sawed off so that the end will be six inches wide. Eleven inches from the small end a square piece of wood is mounted on the base-board to form the back to the square compartment. This is covered with tin on the inside, so that the rodents cannot gnaw the wood away at the edges or about the hole that leads into the cylinder.
A wedge-shaped piece of wood, six inches broad at the bottom and two inches at the top, is attached to the small end of the base-board, and from the top of this piece to the top of the back-board a connection strip is nailed fast. From thick wire or quarter-inch iron rod a wicket is made and driven into holes at the wide end of the board. It should be the same size as the back-board, and is placed there to support the wire cloth of which the cage is made.
Small holes are made in the base-board with an awl, so that the ends of the wire cloth will slip into them. When the edges of the cloth are tacked to the back-board and wired to the wicket, the ends in the holes will remain in place.
A wire door made from the cloth can be hung on hinges, which should be soldered to the galvanized cloth. With straight wires or wire cloth an exercising cylinder can be made with wooden or tin ends. It is supported between the back of the cage and the wedge-shaped upright. Tacks driven around the hole that leads into the cylinder will prevent the occupants from gnawing away the edges of the wood-work.
The squirrel house (Fig. 23) is constructed in the same manner as the cage, but it has the advantage of a covered shelter at one end of the base-board. This is made from a tin cracker-box with the lid removed, and inverted so the bottom acts as the roof. In one side an oval opening is cut and a wire screen is fastened to it at the inside.
The wire cylinder is seven inches in diameter and twelve inches long, quite large enough for two squirrels to run a great race at the same time. A piece of hair felt, an old woollen cloth, or some curled hair will be comfortable for the squirrels to lie on in the enclosed cage.
Reptile Pens
In some parts of the country pets are made of reptiles, and very interesting and tame ones are found among the lizard family.
When making a reptile pen, care should be taken to get the joints tight and not have any small openings or cracks between boards, for snakes can get through a very small space, often much smaller than you would think it possible, judging from the size of their bodies.
In Fig. 24, the design for a very substantial reptile pen is shown, and instead of fine wire screening, two heavy plates of glass may be used at the front of each compartment. This is a double pen, and one side can be used for snakes, while the other may harbor some lizards or small land-turtles.
This pen is forty-eight inches long, twenty-four deep, and twenty-six high. The bottom rail at the front is four inches wide, and the top and upright ones are two inches wide.
The wood from which the pen is made should be tongue-and-grooved, and planed on both sides. It may be from three-quarters to one inch and a quarter thick, and narrow boards are preferable to wide ones.
In the lizard compartment an upper floor is fastened in, having an opening at one side where an inclined board, with cross sticks attached, is arranged so that the animals may climb up and down.
The snake pen should have a portion of a small tree fastened at top and bottom, on which the reptiles may climb and coil. The more short branches it has, the better, for it will then give the snakes a more satisfactory perch to move about on. At the bottom of each end a small trap doorway four inches high and six inches long is cut, and protected by a stout wire-cloth door, hinged and locked. These trap-doors are for the purpose of removing refuse or for feeding the reptiles; or a smaller opening at the back, near the top, and about two inches in diameter, can be used as a food door.
A ventilator is cut in the roof twelve inches long and six inches wide, so that each compartment gets the advantage of an opening about six inches square. Over this a roof is made three inches above the main roof, and with stout wire cloth the opening is covered first at the under side. Then the strip of wire cloth, four inches wide, is tacked around the inside of the opening and to a board the same size as the hole, or six by twelve inches, attached to the under side of the cap.
This arrangement is more clearly shown in Fig. 25, which is a sectional view, A being the cap, B the board to which the upper edge of the wire cloth is attached, C the wire cloth, and D the main roof to the pen. The line E represents the wire cloth tacked to the under side of the opening, to prevent the reptiles crawling up and over the partition.
At the lower end of the partition an opening four inches square may be made and fitted with a wire-netting door that can be raised and lowered by a rod that extends through the cap of the ventilator. One or two staples driven over the rod at the inside of the reptile pen will prevent the rod from bending, and the wire door should slide on runners provided with a rabbet at the inside, so that it cannot be dislodged.
With this construction, the reptiles may be allowed to mingle if they are peaceable, but if the snakes molest the small lizards they must be driven into their own side and the trap-door closed. With the outer doors at the bottom and the ventilator at the top, a free circulation of air can be had; and if the floor is kept well sanded and clean, this reptile pen will make a comfortable home for a collection of such pets.
The lizard run shown in Fig. 26 is made from a wooden shoe-case open at the front, and on top of which a smaller box is mounted and connected with the lower one by means of an inclined board and an opening, through which the lizards can crawl. A ventilator is cut in the upper box and covered with wire netting; and in the lower box, at one end, a doorway is made, four by six inches, and protected by a heavy wire screen door on hinges.
A raised platform and ladder is made at one end of the large box, and in the open space one or two