inclosure made of wire, wicker, or the like, interwoven lattice-wise, for the confinement of birds or wild beasts. The word is French, cage, formed from the Italian gaggia, of the Latin carea, which has the same signification: a cævis theatralibus in quibus includebantur feræ.

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 sorts were pent in iron cages, lest wooden prisons might be broken through. In some prisons there are iron cages for the closer confinement of criminals.

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