CANARY 



1149 



CANARY ISLANDS 



waterway development. The Danube River, 

 which crosses Austria-Hungary, is the most 

 important watercourse in that country, but 

 there is also a canal system, local in character, 

 which adds about 1,700 miles to the natural 

 waterways of the dual monarchy. In Greece 

 is the important Corinth Canal (see CORINTH), 

 across the isthmus which joins the Pelopon- 

 nesus to the northern part of the country. It is 

 one of the world's famous short canals. 



The most important canal in the British 

 Isles, and one of the most remarkable in the 

 world, is that between Manchester and East- 

 ham, on the Mersey River, six miles from 

 Liverpool (see MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL). It 

 was opened for traffic in 1894, and has since 

 been enlarged and improved. Other notable 

 British canals are the Grand Canal, 165 miles 

 long, between Dublin and Ballinasloe, on the 

 River Shannon; the Caledonian Canal, extend- 

 ing across Scotland from Inverness to Fort 

 William; and the canal between the firths of 

 Forth and Clyde, thirty-five miles in length. 

 A royal commission on canals and waterways 

 was appointed in 1912 to investigate the mat- 

 ter of modernizing and nationalizing the canal 

 system of Great Britain. There are in the 

 United Kingdom about 4,700 miles of artificial 

 waterways, 4,000 of this mileage belonging to 

 England and Wales. C.H.H. 



Related Subjects. Of the canals of the 



world, the following are treated in separate 

 articles in these volumes : 



Cape Cod Manchester Ship Canal 



Chesapeake and Ohio New York State Barge 

 Chicago Drainage Canal 



Corinth Nicaragua 



Erie Panama 



Georgian Bay Ship Rideau 



Canal Sault Sainte Marie 



Hennepin Suez 



Illinois and Michigan Trent Canal 



Kaiser Wilhelm Welland 



CANARY, kana'ri, a beautiful little bird of 

 the finch family, the best loved of all the cage 

 birds because of its remarkable gift of song 

 and its cheerfulness and friendly character- 

 istics. It was first found in the Canary Islands 

 and Madeira, acquired its name from the for- 

 mer, and was taken to Europe about the be- 

 ginning of the sixteenth century. Since then 

 it has found its way into households in vari- 

 ous parts of the world, and the centuries of 

 breeding and domestication have brought about 

 marked changes in its appearance. In a state 

 of nature the bird has a dull-green plumage 

 streaked with darker shades, while the canary 

 in captivity is usually a bright yellow, though 



sometimes orange, reddish or pale yellow. The 

 wild canary is not more than five and one-half 

 inches long; its tame brother is sometimes 

 eight inches in length. The topknots of some 



CANARIES 



Below, usual type of canary ; above, American 

 goldfinch, or wild canary. 



and the long, slender shapes of others are all 

 the results of .breeding. The Scotch Fancy 

 canary, with its long, slender, curved body, 

 bent almost to a semi-circle, is one of the 

 strangest of these results. 



In the Harz Mountains and other parts of 

 Germany and in the British Isles and Belgium, 

 the raising of canaries is an important indus- 

 try, and large prices are paid for the highest 

 type of singing birds. The Harz Mountain 

 canaries are the most famous of all. In the 

 United States and Canada the birds cost from 

 $1 up to $75, but sometimes $150 has not been 

 considered too high a price to pay for an 

 especially fine singer. The birds require a 

 clean cage, good seed, some green food, lime 

 and plenty of cold water. Beyond this they 

 need little care and thrive almost anywhere. 

 Their average length of life is close to twenty 

 years. In America, the name wild canary is 

 often given to the American goldfinch, or 

 thistle bird, which, though entirely different, 

 does somewhat resemble the captive canaries. 



Among several excellent books on the subject 

 may be mentioned Canaries and Cage Birds by 

 W. A. Blakston ; and The Canary Book, by R. L. 

 Wallace. 



CANARY ISLANDS, a group of islands in 

 the Atlantic Ocean about sixty miles west of 

 the northwest coast of Africa, covering a total 

 area of 2,807 square miles. They were discov- 

 ered by the Spaniards in 1630 and were named 

 Canaria, a word derived from the Latin cants, 



