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. a/osa) 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 
