274 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



dignity and they started at a " two-forty" rate for the hen 

 commissary department, "great was the fall thereof." 



Did you ever see Houdans in a full trot? If so, you 

 have laughed ; that long fifth toe of theirs, not so useful 

 as the fifth wheel to a coach, is death to all grace and 

 smoothness when in rapid motion ; one moment it catches 

 in a wisp of grass, the next one toe overlaps the other, 

 then both together clasp a twig, and so their unlucky own- 

 ers' ' ' rapid transit " is effected by a series of leaps into the 

 air to avoid summersaults which can not always be avoided. 



We have often felt sorry for our Houdan pets when we 

 have seen them standing disconsolately alone, or else hop- 

 ping about at a sore disadvantage because of a wrapping 

 of string or moss, or tough grass, that had somehow got 

 around those projecting toes and tied the two legs together. 

 We have seen the toe almost cut off* by the pressure of a 

 piece of string, or the leg sore and bleeding from the same 

 cause. 



Once upon a time (not in Florida) we had a large quan- 

 tity of young chicks, many of them Houdans. During a 

 long, wet spell, they were kept housed in a large barn with 

 a clay floor. After a few days we noticed that every Hou- 

 dan chick seemed to be afflicted with St. Vitus's dance — 

 the way they staggered, waddled, rolled, tumbled, and 

 kicked, was marvelous. 



An examination showed that the little fifth toe, just 

 touching the damp clay as they walked, had collected, 

 little by little, a large, hard lump of the latter, in some 

 cases enveloping the entire foot, in others only the offend- 

 ing toe itself, but in all seriously affecting the well-being 

 of the helpless little sufferers. The other chicks, with the 

 regulation four toes, experienced no inconvenience at all 

 from the clay. And so we can not but regard the fifth 

 toe, which is one of the distinguishing marks of the Hou- 



