BIVALVE MOLLUSCA. 357 
the lonely shore of the Aunis, with a few sheep saved from shipwreck, 
Walton at first supported himself by hunting sea-fowl, which fre- 
quented 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 wight net. This consisted of a net some 300 or 
400 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 
conveniently 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 acon, 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. 158), 
inclining forward, with one hand on each edge, and the left leg out- 
side 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 introduced,” 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 contemporaries, but desirous that their 
descendants should remember him, for in every instance he has 
given to the apparatus which he invented the form of his initial letter 
W. After due consideration, Walton began to carry out his design. 
He planted a long range of piles along the low marshy shore, each 
pair forming a letter V, the front of the letter being towards the sea, 
