an inclosure made of wire, wicker, or the like, interwoven lattice-wife, for the confinement of birds or wild beasts. The word is French, cage, formed from the Italian gaggia, of the Latin cavea, which signifies the same: a cavea theatralibus in quibus induantur ferae.

Beasts were usually brought to Rome shut up in oaken or beechen cages, artfully formed, and covered or shaded with boughs, that the creatures, deceived with the appearance of a wood, might fancy themselves in their forest. The fiercer sort were pent in iron cages, lest wooden prisons should be broke through. In some prisons there are iron cages for the closer confinement of criminals. The French laws distinguish two sorts of bird-cages, viz. high or singing cages, and low or dumb-cages; those who expose birds to sale are obliged to put the hens in the latter, and the cocks in the former, that persons may not be imposed on by buying a hen for a cock.

CAGES (caveae), denote also places in the ancient amphitheatres, wherein wild beasts were kept, ready to be let out for sport. The caveae were a fort of iron cages different from dens, which were underground and dark; whereas the caveae being airy and light, the beasts rushed out of them with more alacrity and fierceness than if they had been pent under ground.

in carpentry, signifies an outer-work of timber, enclosing another within it. In this sense we say, the cage of a wind-mill. The cage of a stair-case denotes the wooden sides or walls which inclose it.