Jenifer Lewis, age 8, of san Bernardino, Calif., for her question:

Are there canaries on the Canary Islands?

Chances are your sweet singing canary bird never visited the Canary Islands. But some of his ancestors may have lived there long ago. Perhaps they learned to sing there in the warm mountain forests, but the islands were not named for them.

There are 33 of the little islands. They lie in a warm part of the Atlantic Ocean about 60 miles from the shores of northwest Africa. In ancient times people were not brave enough to sail their ships very far from land. The Atlantic Ocean was a terrifying place right up to the time of Columbus. But the Canary Islands were close enough to land to be discovered long before this.

The sailors of ancient Rome knew about them and Roman reporters wrote about them. And it was the Romans who named them. The visiting sailors noticed that big, fierce dogs ran wild on some of the islands, but if they noticed the canary birds they said nothing about them. The Roman name for dog was canis and they named the group of islands Canaria, meaning the land of the dogs.

Later the name Canaria was changed to the Canary Islands. And later the sweet singing birds were found on wooded hills of certain islands. These songsters of the Canary Islands were called canaries. Most wild canaries have feathers of drab green or murky yellow and their wild songs sound like flocks of cheerful finches. In fact they are related to the pretty finches and some of their relatives once lived in North America.

The wild songsters of the Canary Islands were tamed and trained and in captivity their plumage changed to sunshine yellow. They enjoyed captivity and sang their very best for their human friends. Their voices became far better than those of their wild cousins, and their singing improves with almost every new generation. The first pet canaries were captured and trained in the Canary Islands and sent to Europe more than 400 years ago.

The wild dogs have long since departed and people live on only seven of the l3 islands. Less than a million people make their homes there, but ships pass by on their way down the African coast and many travelers stop to visit. The islands belong to Spain and are divided into two provinces, each with its own capital. The people who live there grow flowers., fruits and vegetables and sometimes the visiting ships take their produce to the markets of Europe.