The Paper-Roll Cage Floor: Pull a Clean Length Through, Tear Off the Old

"This invention relates to improvements in bird-cages, the object being to provide, in connection with a cage, a paper-roll holder, whereby the paper covering for the cage-bottom may be conveniently and quickly changed or renewed; and another object is to provide a novel means for distributing gravel on the paper as it is drawn through the cage." The far end of the bottom "is turned upward and somewhat sharpened, as indicated at 9, so that the paper may be readily torn off at this point when a new length is drawn into the cage." "By this arrangement it is obvious that the paper may be changed in the cage without removing the cage from a suspending-hook or the like".

Cut two hangers from aluminium sheet, each with a slot open at the top near its lower end, and file them smooth. Screw them under one end of the cage's floor tray so their slots line up. Slide a dowel rod through a roll of kraft paper and drop its ends into the slots. Cut a strip of aluminium as wide as the floor, file one long edge to a blunt ridge, and screw it across the far end of the floor with the ridge standing up. Draw the paper from the roll, over the floor, and down over the ridge. Time a change: pull a clean length through and tear the used length off against the ridge. Then time the old way, lifting the tray out and cutting and laying a new sheet.

**Joseph A. Quelch** of Brooklyn, New York, filed US 754,806 on 10 December 1903; it was patented 15 March 1904. His hangers also served as the cage's legs, and a hopper hooked above the floor let gravel fall onto each new length as it was drawn through. **Honest limits.** The notebook assumes one full length per change and no waste. Roll and cage sizes are examples. Your two timings are the measurement.