Some time in 1236 a barque, freighted with sheep and manned by three Irishmen, came to grief upon the rocks in the creek of Aiguillon, a few miles from Rochelle. The neighbouring fishermen who came 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 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. 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.