Wands Peter, age 10, of Spokane, Wash

Is  there really a Canary Island?

Yea, indeed, there is really a Canary Island  in fact there are 13 of them  They are balmy, mountainous isles off the coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean* They were discovered in ancient days by bold mariners from the Mediterranean region and named, not for our sweat singing canary birds, but with the Latin word for dog  The early explorers, it seems, found the islands overrun with wild dogs 

Certain sweet singing finches were found there much later  They were taken as pets trained and bred to be even better songsters and, naturally, the first canary pets were named from the islands from which they came  There were, however, many wild finches in other parts of the world with voices good enough to put them in the canary class