Herriman, George (Joseph) (b. 1881, New Orleans, La., U.S.—d. May 1944, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. cartoonist. He grew up in California and “passed” as white, along with his Creole parents. He started cartooning after a fall from a scaffold prevented him from work¬ ing as a house painter. His first comic strip. Lariat Pete , appeared in 1903 in the San Francisco Chronicle ; it was followed by several others. His best-known strip, Krazy Kat, appeared in 1910 and settled in for a run of more than 30 years in the William Randolph Hearst newspapers. Krazy Kat’s fantasy, drawing, and dialogue were of such high quality that some people consider it the finest comic strip ever published.
herring Either the Atlantic or the Pacific subspecies of Clupea haren- gus (once considered two separate species), slab-sided, northern fishes that are small-headed and streamlined, with silvery iridescent sides and a deep-blue, metallic-hued back. The name also refers to some other mem¬ bers of the family Clupeidae. Adults range in length from 8 to 15 in. (20-38 cm). One of the most abundant species of fish, herring travel in enormous schools. They eat planktonic crustaceans and fish larvae. In Europe they are processed and sold as kippered herring; in eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S., most of the herring used are young fishes canned as sardines. Herring taken in the Pacific are used mainly to make fish oil and meal.
herring gull Most common of the Atlantic gulls in the Northern Hemi¬ sphere. The herring gull (Larus argentatus) has a gray mantle, flesh- coloured legs and feet, and black-and-white-spotted wing tips. Herring gulls are primarily scavengers; their populations are generally increasing because of expanding food supplies, chiefly garbage and sewage in or near coastal waters.
Herriot V.er-e-'oX, Edouard (b. July 5,1872, Troyes, France—d. March 26, 1957, Lyon) French politician and writer. He became mayor of Lyon in 1905 and kept the post for most of his life. Elected as a member of the Radical Party to the Chamber of Deputies (1919), he led the opposition to the Bloc National as head of the Cartel des Gauches (1924). As prime minister (1924-25) he forced the resignation of the president, Alexandre Millerand and led France to accept the Dawes Plan and to recognize the Soviet Union. In 1926 he was prime minister for three days and held the position again in 1932. He abstained from voting when the National Assembly gave full powers to Philippe Petain at Vichy in 1940 and then was arrested and deported to Germany (1942-45). He returned to France and served as president of the National Assembly from 1947 to 1954. In his long career he served in nine different cabinets.
Herriot \'her-e-ot\, James orig. James Alfred Wight (b. Oct. 3, 1916, Glasgow, Scot.—d. Feb. 23, 1995, Thirlby, nearThirsk, Yorkshire, Eng.) British veterinarian and writer. Wight joined the practice of two veterinarian brothers working in the Yorkshire Dales and at age 50 was persuaded by his wife to write down his collection of anecdotes. His humorous, fictionalized reminiscences were published under the name James Herriot in If Only They Could Talk (1970) and It Shouldn’t Hap¬ pen to a Vet (1972), which were issued in the U.S. as All Creatures Great and Small (1972). The instant best-seller inaugurated a series of highly popular books, which was adapted for two films and a long-running tele¬ vision series.
Herrmann, Bernard (b. June 29, 1911, New York, N.Y., U.S.—d. Dec. 24, 1975, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. composer. He studied at New York University and Juilliard and was one of a group of young compos¬ ers associated with Charles Ives in the 1930s. Active in radio from 1930, he worked with Orson Welles, which led to a career in film. He wrote scores for Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942); other films include All That Money Can Buy (1941, Academy Award). He wrote the scores for eight of Alfred Hitchcock’s films, includ¬ ing Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), and Psycho (1960).
Herschel Vhsr-shalX family Family of British astronomers. The German-bom William Herschel (1738-1822) immigrated to England in 1757 and initially supported himself through music. In order to study dis¬ tant celestial objects, he ground his own mirrors, producing the best tele¬ scopes of the day. His discovery of Uranus catapulted him to fame at age 43. He hypothesized that nebulae (those objects now known to be galax¬
ies) are composed of stars and developed a theory of stellar evolution. He also discovered infrared radiation. He was knighted in 1816. His sister, Caroline Lucretia Herschel (1750-1848), contributed to her brother’s researches, carrying out many of the necessary calculations. She also detected by telescope three nebulae and eight comets. In 1787 the king gave her an annual pension in recognition of her work. She continued to work for decades after William’s death. William’s son John (1792-1871) studied mathematics at the University of Cambridge and from 1816 assisted his father. He later undertook a journey to the Southern Hemi¬ sphere to survey its skies; he returned in 1838, having recorded the loca¬ tions of 68,948 stars. Also an accomplished chemist, he invented (independently of William Henry Fox Talbot) the process of photography on sensitized paper. He was knighted in 1831. His sons Alexander Stewart (1836-1907) and John (1837-1921) also became astronomers.
Hersey, John (Richard) (b. June 17, 1914, Tianjin, China—d. March 24, 1993, Key West, Fla., U.S.) Chinese-born U.S. novelist and journal¬ ist. Born to missionaries, he worked as a correspondent in East Asia, Italy, and the Soviet Union in the years 1937-46. His novel A Bell for Adano (1944, Pulitzer Prize) depicts the Allied occupation of a Sicilian town. Hiroshima (1946), about the experiences of atomic-blast survivors, and The Wall (1950), about the Warsaw ghetto uprisings, combine fact and fiction. His later novels encompassed a wide variety of subjects from con¬ temporary issues to moral parables set in the future.
Hersh, Seymour (Myron) (b. April 8, 1937, Chicago, Ill., U.S.) U.S. journalist. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1954. He began his journalistic career in 1959 as a police reporter, and he later worked for UPI and The New York Times and as a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. His report on the My Lai incident won him a 1970 Pulitzer Prize; he also wrote about domestic spying by the CIA and pro¬ duced many other investigative reports. His The Dark Side of Camelot (1997) was a controversial, negative look at John F. Kennedy; Against All Enemies (1998) discussed the ailments suffered by Persian Gulf War vet¬ erans.
Hershey, A(lfred) D(ay) (b. Dec. 4, 1908, Owosso, Mich., U.S.—d. May 22, 1997, Syosset, N.Y.) U.S. biologist. He worked principally at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. He and Salvador Luria indepen¬ dently demonstrated the occurrence of spontaneous mutation in both bac¬ teriophages and hosts. Later, Hershey and Max DelbrOck independently discovered the occurrence of genetic recombination in phages. Delbriick incorrectly interpreted his results, but Hershey proved that the results he had obtained were recombinations by showing that the genetic processes in question correspond with the crossing-over of parts of similar chro¬ mosomes observed in cells of higher organisms. He showed that phage DNA is the main component entering the host cell during infection and that DNA, rather than protein, is the phage’s genetic material. In 1969 he shared a Nobel Prize with Luria and Delbriick.
Hertford \'har-ford\ Town (pop., 1995 est.: 23,000), East Hertfordshire district, administrative and historic county of Hertfordshire, southeastern England. Located on the northern periphery of London, Hertford was first recorded as the scene of a general synod led by Theodore of Tarsus in ad 672. The oldest buildings extant are 15th-century timber-framed houses. The town has light engineering industries and many agricultural connec¬ tions. It is the county’s administrative centre.
Hertfordshire Vhar-ford-.shirX Administrative (pop. 2001: 1,033,977) and historic county, southern England. It adjoins London on that city’s northern side; its county seat is Hertford. It includes the two early “gar¬ den cities”—Letchworth (1903) and Welwyn Garden City (1920)—and four of the eight new towns planned around London since World War II (1939-45). With an array of direct road and rail links to London, it houses light industries, offices, film studios, and thousands of exurbanites.