MYTILID^B. 347 



to the relief of the crew succeeded with great difficulty in saving the 

 life of the master, a man named Walton. Exiled upon the lonely 

 shore of the Aunis, with a few sheep saved from shipwreck, Walton 

 at first supported himself by hunting sea-fowl, which frequented the 

 shore and neighbouring marshes in vast flocks. He was a skilful 

 fowler, and invented or adapted a peculiar kind of net, which he called 

 the night net. This consisted of a net some three or four hundred 

 yards in length by three in breadth, which he placed horizontally, 

 like a screen, along the quiet waters of the bay, retaining it in its 

 position by means of posts driven into the muddy bottom. In the 

 obscurity of the night the wild-fowl, in floating along the surface of 

 the waters, would come in contact with the net, and get themselves 

 entangled in its meshes. 



But the Bay of Aiguillon was only a vast lake of mud, in which 

 boats moved with difficulty ; and Walton, having arranged his bird-net, 

 began to consider what kind of boat would enable him most con- 

 veniently to navigate the sea of mud. The flat-bottomed, square- 

 sided boat, known in our rivers as a punt, and on the Norman coast 

 as an aeon, was the result. Walton's boat had a wooden frame some 

 three yards long and one in breadth and depth, the fore part of which 

 sloped down into the water, in the form of a prow, at a slight angle. 

 In propelling the boat the rower, who occupied the stern of the punt, 

 knelt on his right knee (as represented in Fig. 159), inclining forward, 

 with one hand on each edge, and the left leg outside the boat. A 

 vigorous push with the left foot gave the frail boat an impulse, under 

 which it rapidly traversed the bay from one point to the other. 



The mussels swarmed in the little bay ; and Walton soon remarked 

 that they attached themselves by preference to that part of the post a 

 little above the mud, and that those so placed soon became fatter, as 

 well as more agreeable to the taste, than those buried in the mud. He 

 saw in this peculiarity the elements of a sort of mussel culture which 

 might become a new branch of industry. " The practices he intro- 

 duced," says M. Coste, " were so happily adapted to the requirements 

 of the new industry, that, after six centuries, they are still the rules 

 by which the rich patrimony he created for a numerous population 

 is governed. He seems to have applied himself to the enterprise, 

 conscious not only of the service he was rendering to his contem- 

 poraries, but desirous that their descendants should remember him, 



