Os canários

Origem do Habitat dos canários ao longo do tempo.


Na época do Romanos no tempo de Augustus ,as ilhas das Canárias, já eram conhecidas .

King of Mauretania, whose account is given by the Elder Pliny, who states that at this time they were uninhabited, and that there were numerous birds:
"Omnes copia pomarum et avium, omnes generis abundant," etc.
(Pliny. Book VI, C. 32).

The islands were redis­covered in 1334 by a French vessel. In 1400 a Norman gentleman, Jean de Bethen­court, sailed from La Rochelle, landed at Lanzarotte and Fuerteventura, but was opposed by the natives. Having got a grant of the islands from Henry III., he, in 1404, mastered Fuerteventura, Gomera, and Hierro, but was repulsed at Palma and Canary. He returned home and died in 1408. His nephew sold his rights to Don Enrique de Guzman, and he, failing to overcome the natives, sold them to another Spaniard, Paraza. About 1461 his suc­cessors took nominal possession of Canary and Teneriffe, but the natives effectually resisted occupation. Meantime J. de Bethencourt's nephew had fraudulently made another sale to Portugal. Finally the islands were ceded to Spain. Canary, Teneriffe, and Palma being still unsubdued in 1476, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain compelled Paraza's successors to sell the islands to the Crown. In 1477 one thou­sand soldiers were sent out, and after much bloodshed the Spaniards, under Pedro de Vera, became masters of Grand Canary in 1483. Palma, in 1491, and Teneriffe, in 1495, were conquered by Alonzo de Lugo.

In the case of the Canary Islands it is possible that the natives had domesticated the Canary many years before its intro­duction into Europe.

The Azores
Although known to Arabian geographers in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, the Azores were believed to have been uninhabited until annexed by Portugal, 1432-1457. Coloni­sation went on well, and in 1466 they were presented by Alphonso V. to his aunt, Isabella Duchess of Burgundy. An influx of Flemish settlers followed, and the islands were known as the Flemish Islands. The area of St. Michael, the largest of the Azores, is 224 square miles. "Birds are so plentiful that 420,000, including many Canaries, are slaughtered annually" (Encycl. Brit.).

It may be inferred, from the fact that Gesner in 1555 speaks of "the birds which the English call Canaries", that a very early importation of the bird had taken place into England, and probably this [import] came from the Azores into England, Belgium, and France some thirty years before the in­troduction to other European countries.

Madeira.
Madeira, an island thirty by thirteen miles, was not annexed by Portugal until 1420, although discovered long before 1351 by Portuguese ves­sels under Genoese captains. The advent of the Canary is thus seen to be independent of the usual folk-tale of a shipload of Canaries, bound for Leghorn wrecked on the island of Elba.

Gesner's description of the Canary may be here given (from Ray's translation, 1678, of Willughby's 'Ornithology' 1676)


" 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"

He further 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."

Gesner also says, referring to the Canary Islands

" 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."

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.

Professor Karl Pearson, editor of "Biometrika" (Vol. VII, Nos. 1, 2 October 1909), in which it originally appeared with illustrations and four colour plates - also published separately as "Canary Breeding - A Practical Analysis of Records from 1891 - 1909" by the University Press Cambridge.]


the article begins
"At the present day there is little doubt that all the varieties of Canary have been evolved from the wild Canary (Serinus Canaria), of the Canary Islands in the Azores and Madeira, and all derived from one species.

It is comparatively easy for us, in these days of scientific progress, to come to this conclusion; but we can understand the great difficulty that 19th Century writers had in understanding the origins of a bird, of which twenty-nine distinct varie­ties existed by the early 18th Century.

Observers could not believe that all those varieties could have come from a single ancestor, and as a result many fanciful theories of origin were given; some based on supposed fact, but even these were false. Among these I would place the myths of the Chaffinch- Canary Hybrid, the Yellowhammer-Canary Hybrid, and other unknown hybrids of today.

[NOTE The wild canary is regarded as a sub-species of the Serin - (Serinus Serinus) which inhabits central and southern Europe and occasionally visits Britain]