[23] OYSTER AND MUSSEL INDUSTRIES. 847 
In the presence of this first and very serious difficulty, the idea struck 
him of building a canoe of the most ingenious simplicity, by the aid of 
which, without other impulse than that of the foot, he could glide over 
the mud with the rapidity of a trotting horse, visiting remote localities, 
and being able, thanks to this new instrument, to devote himself from 
this time to all enterprises which he thought useful. He noticed that 
the sea birds and land birds, which skim along the surface of the water 
during the twilight, collected in sufficiently large numbers to form an 
object of lucrative trade, if suitable snares could be devised for their 
capture. Ue used for this purpose a particular kind of net invented by 
him, and called filet @allouret,* or night net. 
This immense net, of two unequal meshes, was 300 to 400 meters in 
length, by 3 meters in height, fastened upon long stakes driven in the 
mud to the depth of a meter; it was stretched carefully above high-water 
level like a curtain, in the meshes of which all the birds flying in that diree- 
tion would be caught. Walton was not engaged in bird-catching very 
long before he discovered that young mussels attached themselves in 
great numbers to the submerged stakes which upheld his net, and he 
perceived that if they were suspended a certain distance above the 
mud, they would not only grow larger, but be of much finer flavor 
than those beneath the mud. This discovery was to him a veritable 
revelation. He increased the number of stakes, and, like the first, these 
became covered with young mussels, which increased in proportion to 
the number of stakes provided for these growing colonies. After the 
success of such an experiment, he became convinced that the progeny 
of the native mussels could be gathered and bred in artificial reservoirs, 
and that this culture might be made a great industry. To this important 
work he consecrated henceforth all his efforts. 
The methods which he applied were so happily adapted to the per- 
manent necessities of the new industry, that after the lapse of eight 
centuries they are still employed by the people who were so greatly 
enriched by them. In putting up his structures he seems to have 
desired that they should serve the most useful purpose to his contem- 
poraries, and at the same time remind their descendants of kim, since he 
gave, them the form of the letter V, the first letter of his name, as if he 
wished that his monogram should be inscribed on all the points of this 
swamp, fertilized by his genius, hoping, no doubt, that in time a suitable 
monument would be erected by a grateful public to the memory of the 
founder. According to the plan described below he constructed his first 
establishment, upon the model of which the 490 bouchots now in oper- 
ation along the Bay of Aiguillon were built.t 
Referring to a document published towards the close of the sixteenth 
century, we find that it was in the year 1246, ten years after his ship- 
*Allawrat, or allaurat, from which comes allouret, isa word compounded of Celtic and 
old Irish, which signifies a dark-night net: d’allaow, obscurity, and rat or ret, net. 
tSee plan of the Bay of Agiuillon, on page 
