266 MARITIME PISCICULTURE. 



or walking along the muddy and yielding surface being 

 impracticable, he contrived a " poussepied" a kind of 

 boat impelled by the foot in this fashion : It is a sim- 

 ple wooden box, nine feet long and eighteen inches 

 wide and deep, with one extremity curved into the 

 shape of a prow. The boucholeur, or mussel-man, as he 

 may be termed, places himself at the hinder end, with 

 his right knee on the bottom, and, leaning forward, 

 grasps the sides with both hands, while the left leg, 

 which is outside, and protected by a strong boot, does 

 the work of an oar, by being alternately struck into 

 and withdrawn from the sand on which he rests. " The 

 return of a fleet of 160 such singular vessels is a curi- 

 ous sight. Emerging at all points out of the forest of 

 stakes, they are like a flock of birds chased by the tide. 

 Without having seen them, it is impossible to form a 

 conception of the grotesque manoeuvres of the strange 

 squadron." By joining together three of these boats, 

 the one in the middle being loaded, and the two on 

 either side of it being leg-driven, as we have explained, 

 large quantities of stakes and hurdles can with ease be 

 transported to their place of destination. 



We indicate this novel form of vessel, as fitted to be 

 useful on our coasts when the apparatus of the fisher- 

 men cannot be approached by the common cobles re- 

 quiring a considerable depth of water. 



At a certain season of the year the manoeuvres of 

 these boats would be very difficult, but for the opera- 

 tions of a small crustacean (Corophium longicornis), 

 which, in its chase after the sea-worms on which it 

 feeds, levels the deep furrows and temporary inequali- 

 ties of the sand, which, being hardened by the sun, 

 impedes the movements of the boucholeur s; and thus, in 

 a few weeks, these little creatures do what thousands 

 of men could not do in a whole summer. 



Walton never gave up the use of stakes without hur- 

 dles, but, fixing numbers of these along the shore, made 

 them serve for the filling up of gaps in the hurdles not 



