Sally Ann Knight, age 11, of Spokane, WA, for her question;

Do canaries have ears?

A pet canary soon gets to know when you talk to him. He cocks his yellow head and hops on your finger. He soon learns his name and opens his bright eyes when you call. When the radio starts or another bird sings nearby your darling little bundle of feathers joins in the noise with a burst of trilling notes. So it is quite plain that a canary can hear, even though he does not have two little ears on the side of his head.

We know he has a good ear for music but how does he hear? He hears with a pair of ears inside his head just where you would expect them to be. The fact that he has no outside ears, as you have, does not hamper him at all. Your outside ears are merely decorative little sounding boards. The real job of hearing is done by the inner ears buried deep in the bones of your head.

Birds also hear with their inner ears. They are streamlined creatures in order to glide through the air. Flapping outer ears would got in the way. Each inner ear is covered with a thin layer of skin under the feathers, Sound passes through to the inner ear which hears and tells the bird exactly what is going on.