The first canaries known to Europeans were brought from there by a merchant ship trading with the Canary Islands as a part of her cargo, several thousand of these birds having been trapped in the hope that they could be sold for a good price as song-birds. The ship was wrecked near the coast of Italy, but by the thoughtfulness of a sailor the cage containing the birds was opened and the birds liberated. They flew at once to the nearest point of land, which happened to be the island of Elba. The climate was so propitious that the canaries multiplied rapidly. In a very short time their superiority as songsters attracted attention and their domestication followed. The shipwreck referred to occurred early in the sixteenth century. The Italians were the first to breed these birds, and they were by them shipped to Russia, Germany, Belgium, and England. They were first described in an English book on natural history in 1610. The rage for breeding the canary with home birds became curiously popular and resulted in a curious intermixture of colors. In Italy they were bred with the citril and serin; in Germany with the linnet, green finch, and siskin. Mr. C. N. Page says, in his "Feathered Pets," a very valuable book for bird fanciers, that in an English book published in 1709 there are twenty-eight varieties of canaries mentioned, comprising nearly all those known at the present time and some which have become extinct. The climate has also had much to do with the change of color in these birds. The canary, which in its native home at Teneriffe is almost brown, becomes yellow and sometimes nearly white after being bred a few years in France, and it has been observed by naturalists that the winter fur of animals and feathers of birds become thicker and lighter in color in proportion to the coldness of the climate which they inhabit. In England and Germany canary societies have existed for upwards of a century, and annual shows or exhibitions are held with prizes offered for the best birds.