FISHES. 597 



herring fishery, being employed to announce to the inhabitants of the 

 fishing towns the approach of the shoals of fish. In the fiords of 

 Norway, where the produce of the herring fishery is the principal 

 means of existence to nearly the entire population, it often happens 

 that the fish make their appearance at the most unexpected times, 

 and on some parts of the coast the shoals could only be met by one 

 or two boats. Before the boats from the bays and fiords could 

 take part in the fishery, the herrings had deposited their spawn and 

 returned to the open sea. 



To prevent these disappointments, often repeated with great loss 

 to the fishermen, the Norwegian Government established, in 1857, a 

 submarine electric cable along the coast frequented by the herrings, 

 of 100 miles in length, with stations on shore at intervals conveniently 

 placed for communicating with the villages inhabited by the fishermen. 

 As soon as a shoal of herrings is known to be in the offing and they 

 can always be perceived at a considerable distance by the wave they 

 raise a telegram is despatched along the coast, which makes known 

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

 established themselves. 



This important branch of industry has 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 V. solemnly 

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

 memory of the creator of an industry which had enriched his native 

 land. 



The Shad (C. alosa) has the body round and more plump than the 

 herring, and is still more distinguishable by the arrangement of its 

 teeth. More than twenty species of this genus are known, varying 

 considerably in size. They inhabit the seas which wash the coasts of 

 Europe, Africa, India, and America. One species is the Common 

 Shad, C. alosa (Fig. 383), 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 ; it 

 is found at this season in the Rhine, the Seine, the Garonne, the 



