the truth about the connection between canary islands and birds..

Gesner in his "Historia Animalium" Book III., (1555) gives an early description of the Canary. After describing the Citril as:

    "being similar to Chloris (Greenfinch), with yellow or citron breast, grey head, and excelling all of this genus in song, except the Serin", he adds: "Similar to this is, as I hear, the bird of sweetest song, called the Canary, which is brought from the Canary Islands, productive of sugar"

The Wild Canary - Serinus Canaria by E.F. Bailey 1907
He adds:
"It is sold everywhere very dear, both for the sweetness of its singing, and also because it is brought from far places with great care and diligence, and but rarely, so that it is wont to be kept only by nobles and great men."
Referring to the Canary Islands, he says:

" These are the Canary Islands, out of which in our age are wont to be brought certain singing birds which from the place they are bred, they commonly call Canary birds; others call them Sugar birds, because the best sugar is brought thence."

We learn from this that, in the first half of the 16th Century, Canaries and sugar were imported into Europe (including England), and as the final conquest of the Canary islands by Spain did not take place until the closing years of the 15th Century we know that little time was lost in bringing the first Canaries to Europe along with the sugar." [end quote]

What is truly marvellous, is that all the present varieties of canary, in all their profusion of colour, shape and song, are descended from this single ancestor. Serinus Canaria is itself a sub-species of Serinus Serinus -the common serin finch.