The vanishing bird cage, also known as the flying birdcage, is a classic parlour magic

Magic (illusion)

Magic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...

 effect that was invented by French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 magician Buatier De Kolta

Buatier De Kolta

Buatier de Kolta was a french magician who performed throughout the 1870s and 1880s in England and America. Buatier de Kolta was a contemporary of fellow French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin...

. The trick has also been used by magicians Carl Hertz

Carl Hertz

Carl Hertz was born Louis or Leib Morgenstein in San Francisco.After becoming proficient in the art of magic, he toured America, Europe and Australia, which he had first visited in 1892...

, Harry Blackstone, Sr.

Harry Blackstone, Sr.

Harry Blackstone was a famed stage magician and illusionist of the 20th century. Blackstone was born Harry Bouton in Chicago, Illinois, he began his career as a magician in his teens and was popular through World War II as a USO entertainer. He was often billed as The Great Blackstone. His son...

, John Mulholland

John Mulholland

John Mulholland is the name of:*John Mulholland , president of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, 1910–1912*John Mulholland, 1st Baron Dunleath , Irish businessman and Conservative Member of Parliament*John F...

, Sabrina Vera and Tommy Wonder

Tommy Wonder

Tommy Wonder was the stage name of Jacobus Maria Bemelman, a Dutch magician who performed both close-up and stage magic. Wonder performed in Las Vegas, Monte Carlo and on Fox television....

.

The magician displays a bird cage, holding it between both of his hands. The cage is rectangular

Rectangle

In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is any quadrilateral with four right angles. The term "oblong" is occasionally used to refer to a non-square rectangle...

, about six inches tall by six inches wide by eight inches long, and made of wire

Wire

A wire is a single, usually cylindrical, flexible strand or rod of metal. Wires are used to bear mechanical loads and to carry electricity and telecommunications signals. Wire is commonly formed by drawing the metal through a hole in a die or draw plate. Standard sizes are determined by various...

 on all six sides. Often there is a bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

, though in modern performances of the act it is usually fake, inside the cage. The magician will offer the cage for inspection by an audience member, but he will never actually release his grip of it. Then, without covering the cage, the magician makes a sudden motion and the cage (and anything inside) vanishes from sight.
A variation of the trick was featured in the 2006 film The Prestige

The Prestige (film)

The Prestige is a 2006 mystery thriller film written, directed and co-produced by Christopher Nolan, with a screenplay adapted from Christopher Priest's 1995 novel of the same name. The story follows Robert Angier and Alfred Borden, rival stage magicians in London at the end of the 19th century...

.