an enclosure made of wire, wicker, or the like, interwoven lattice-wire, for the confinement of birds or wild beasts. The word is French, cage, formed from the Italian gaggio, of the Latin cavea which signifies the same: a caveis theatralibus in quibus includebantur fere.

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 might be broke through. In some prisons there are iron cages for the cloistered confinement of criminals. The French laws distinguish two sorts of birds 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 sort of iron cages different from dens, which were under ground 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 staircase denotes the wooden sides or walls which enclose it.