846 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [22] 
to illustrate the apparatus which the genius of a victim of shipwreck 
and the experience of several centuries have applied to this important 
enterprise. 
In the Bay of Aiguillon, a few kilometers from Rochelle, upon the 
immense and sterile marsh which forms the extremity of this muddy 
bay, where up to that time the inhabitants of the coast had been 
unable to obtain any sustenance whatever, a poor Irishman, thrown 
thither by storm and shipwreck some eight centuries ago, created a busi- 
ness which now supports at ease over 3,000 inhabitants of the communes 
of Esnandes, Marsilly, and Charron, to whom he left this legacy, as if 
Providence wished that he should be able to repay the generous hospi- 
tality which had been extended to him in his misfortune. It was towards 
the close of the year 1235 that this event occurred, which was destined to 
open up to the country an era of prosperity and produce an abundance 
where before only want and misery existed. 
A bark laden with sheep and manned by three sailors was driven by 
a terrible northwest gale from the coast of Ireland and thrown upon 
the rocks at the point of Escale, half a league distant from the port of 
Esnandes. The crew and the freight would all have been inevitably 
swallowed up in the sea but for the timely help of the fishermen along 
the bleak coast. But with all of their efforts they succeeded in saving 
the life of only one of the sailors; he was Walton, the owner of the cargo, 
and became the founder of the first bowchot, a marvelous invention, the 
fruits of which have long since enriched one province, and the applica- 
tion of which to other shores will some day cause the once obscure name 
of its author to be inscribed among those of the greatest beneiac 
of the human race. 
Exiled on this barren coast, with all his fortune gone, save a few 
sheep rescued from the wreck, which afterwards, crossed with the local 
breed, produced that splendid variety known in Vendée as marsh sheep 
(mouton de marais), Walton applied his inventive genius to the prob- 
lem of obtaining a livelihood and of making himself useful in his new 
home. He therefore determined to explore throughout its length and 
breadth the immense lake of mud which lay before his eyes, and ascer- 
tain if it could not be turned to some profit. But to do this he was 
compelled to walk at low tide through this liquid mud, which slipped 
from under his feet and formed an obstacle to the realization of his 
purpose. 
XN 
1598, chez J. Caillove, Cour du Palais (trés-rare). In 1752, Mercier Dupaty, treasurer 
of France, inserted in the reporis of the Royal Academy of Rochelle a Memoir on the 
bouchots for mussels, which he had previously read two years before at one of the meet- 
ings of this academy. In 1835, M. C. @Orbigny, sr., wrote a memoir in favor of the 
bouchot fishermen, containing documents and statistical reports proving the importance 
of this business. This work has been republished, partially, but with additions giv- 
ing it greater importance, in the Annales de la Société @agriculture de la Rochelle, for the 
year 1846, under the title of A/émoire sur les bouchots & moules des communes @ Esnandes 
et de Charron. 
