OSSEOUS FISHES. 583 



in each village the approach to the bay in which the herrings have 

 established themselves. 



This important branch of industry ha's only assumed its real 

 character since the fourteenth century, and its sudden and prodigious 

 extension is due to the discovery of a simple Dutch fisherman, George 

 Benkel, who died in 1397. To this man Holland owes much of its 

 wealth. He discovered, in short, the art of curing the herring so as 

 to preserve it for an indefinite time. From that moment the herring 

 fishery assumed an unexpected importance, and became the source of 

 much wealth to Holland and its industrious and enterprising people. 

 Two hundred years after his death the Emperor Charles Y. solemnly 

 ate a herring on Benkel's tomb; it was a small homage paid to 

 the memory of the creator of a new industry which had enriched 

 his native land. 



The Shad (Alosa), which have the body round and more plump 

 than the herring, are still more distinguishable by the arrangement of 

 their teeth. More than twenty species of this genus are known, vary- 

 ing considerably in size. They inhabit the seas which wash the 

 coasts of Europe, Africa, India, and America. One species is the 

 Common Shad, Alosa communis (Fig. 384), which is found in the 

 Channel, the North Sea, and all round our coast. It is of a silvery 

 tint generally, greenish on the back, with one or two black spots 

 behind the gills. The shad approaches the mouths of rivers and 

 great estuaries, and habitually ascends them in the spring for the 

 purpose of depositing its ova, and is found at this season in the 

 Ehine, the Seine, the Garonne, the Volga, the Elbe, and many of our 

 own rivers. In some of the Irish rivers the masses of shad taken in 

 the seine-net have been so great that no amount of exertion has been 

 sufficient to land them. It sometimes attains a very considerable 

 size, weighing as much as from four to six pounds. The shad taken 

 at sea are less delicate in their flesh than those caught in fresh water. 

 The habits of the shad are very imperfectly known. Two species are 

 found on the British coast, namely, the Twaite Shad of Yarrell 

 (Alosa finta), which ia about fourteen inches in length, brownish- 

 green on the back, inclining to blue in certain lights, the rest of the 

 body silvery white, with five or six dusky spots on each side arranged 

 longitudinally. The jaws are furnished with distinct teeth ; the tail 

 deeply forked. 



