Page:EB1911 - Volume 05.djvu/185

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172
CANALIS—CANARY ISLANDS

the “Regatta on the Grand Canal.” He died on the 20th of August 1768. Bellotto (commonly named Bernardo), who is also sometimes called Canaletto (1724–1780), was his nephew and pupil, and painted with deceptive resemblance to the style of the more celebrated master.

CANALIS (also “canal” and “channel”; from the Latin), in architecture, the sinking between the fillets of the volute of the Ionic capital: in the earliest examples, though sunk below the fillets, it is slightly convex in section.

CANANDAIGUA, a village and the county-seat of Ontario county, New York, U.S.A., 30 m. S.E. of Rochester. Pop. (1890) 5868; (1900) 6151; (1910) 7217. It is served by the New York Central and Hudson River, and the Northern Central (Pennsylvania system) railways, and is connected with Rochester by an inter-urban electric line. Among the manufactures are pressed bricks, tile, beer, ploughs, flour, agate and tin-ware. The village, picturesquely situated at the north end of Canandaigua Lake, a beautiful sheet of water about 15 m. long with a breadth varying from a mile to a mile and a half, is a summer resort. It has a county court house; the Canandaigua hospital of physicians and surgeons; the Frederick Ferris Thompson memorial hospital, with a bacteriological laboratory supported by the county; the Clark Manor House (a county home for the aged), given by Mrs Frederick Ferris Thompson in memory of her mother and of her father, Myron Holley Clark (1806–1892), president of the village of Canandaigua in 1850–1851 and governor of New York in 1855–1857; the Ontario Orphan Asylum; Canandaigua Academy; Granger Place school for girls; Brigham Hall (a private sanatorium for nervous and mental diseases); Young Men’s Christian Association building (1905); and two libraries, the Wood (public) library and the Union School library, founded in 1795. There is a public playground in the village with free instruction by a physical director; and a swimming school, endowed by Mrs F. F. Thompson, gives free lessons in swimming. The village owns its water-supply system. A village of the Seneca Indians, near the present Canandaigua, bearing the same name, which means “a settlement was formerly there” (not, as Lewis Morgan thought, “chosen spot”), was destroyed by Gen. John Sullivan in 1779. There are boulder memorials of Sullivan’s expedition and of the treaty signed here on the 11th of November 1794 by Timothy Pickering, on behalf of the United States with the Six Nations—a treaty never ratified by the Senate. Canandaigua was settled in 1789 and was first incorporated in 1812.

CANARD (the Fr. for “duck”), a sensational or extravagant story, a hoax or false report, especially one circulated by newspapers. This use of the word in France dates from the 17th century, and is supposed by Littré to have originated in the old expression, “vendre un canard à moitié” (to half-sell a duck); as it is impossible to “half-sell a duck,” the phrase came to signify to take in, or to cheat.

CANARY (Serinus canarius), a well-known species of passerine bird, belonging to the family Fringillidae or finches (see Finch). It is a native of the Canary Islands and Madeira, where it occurs abundantly in the wild state, and is of a greyish-brown colour, slightly varied with brighter hues, although never attaining the beautiful plumage of the domestic bird. It was first domesticated in Italy during the 16th century, and soon spread over Europe, where it is now the most common of cage-birds. During the years of its domestication, the canary has been the subject of careful artificial selection, the result being the production of a bird differing widely in the colour of its plumage, and in a few of its varieties even in size and form, from the original wild species. The prevailing colour of the most admired varieties of the canary is yellow, approaching in some cases to orange, and in others to white; while the most robust birds are those which, in the dusky green of the upper surface of their plumage, show a distinct approach to the wild forms. The least prized are those in which the plumage is irregularly spotted and speckled. In one of the most esteemed varieties, the wing and tail feathers are at first black—a peculiarity, however, which disappears after the first moulting. Size and form have also been modified by domestication, the wild canary being not more than 5½ in. in length, while a well-known Belgian variety usually measures 8 in. There are also hooped or bowed canaries, feather-footed forms and top-knots, the latter having a distinct crest on the head; but the offspring of two such top-knotted canaries, instead of showing an increased development of crest, as might be expected, are apt to be bald on the crown. Most of the varieties, however, of which no fewer than twenty-seven were recognized by French breeders so early as the beginning of the 18th century, differ merely in the colour and the markings of the plumage. Hybrids are also common, the canary breeding freely with the siskin, goldfinch, citril, greenfinch and linnet. The hybrids thus produced are almost invariably sterile. It is the female canary which is almost invariably employed in crossing, as it is difficult to get the females of the allied species to sit on the artificial nest used by breeders. In a state of nature canaries pair, but under domestication the male bird has been rendered polygamous, being often put with four or five females; still he is said to show a distinct preference for the female with which he was first mated. It is from the others, however, that the best birds are usually obtained. The canary is very prolific, producing eggs, not exceeding six in number, three or four times a year; and in a state of nature it is said to breed still oftener. The work of building the nest, and of incubation, falls chiefly on the female, while the duty of feeding the young rests mainly with the cock bird. The natural song of the canary is loud and clear; and in their native groves the males, especially during the pairing season, pour forth their song with such ardour as sometimes to burst the delicate vessels of the throat. The males appear to compete with each other in the brilliancy of their melody, in order to attract the females, which, according to the German naturalist Johann Matthaüs Bechstein (1757–1822) always select the best singers for their mates. The canary readily imitates the notes of other birds, and in Germany and especially Tirol, where the breeding of canaries gives employment to a large number of people, they are usually placed for this purpose beside the nightingale.  (A. N.) 

CANARY ISLANDS (Canarias), a Spanish archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean; about 60 m. W. of the African coast, between 27° 40′ and 29° 30′ N., and between 13° 20′ and 18° 10′ W. Pop. (1900) 358,564; area 2807 sq. m. The Canary Islands resemble a roughly-drawn semicircle, with its convex side facing south-wards, and with the island of Hierro detached on the south-west. More precisely, they may be considered as two groups, one of which, including Teneriffe, Grand Canary, Palma, Hierro and Gomera, consists of mountain peaks, isolated and rising directly from an ocean of great depth; while the other, comprising Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and six uninhabited islets, is based on a single submarine plateau, of far less depth. Teneriffe and Gomera, the only members of the principal group which have a common base, may be regarded as the twin peaks of one great volcanic mass. Ever since the researches of Leopold von Buch the Canary Islands have been classical ground to the student of volcanic action. Buch considered them to be representative of his “craters of elevation.” In common with the other West