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The English Dorking is one of the oldest of European breeds and is possessed of five toes. Five-toed fowls were reported in Rome and exist to-day in Turkey and Japan. The Dorkings may be descended directly from the Roman fowls, or various strains of five-toed fowls may have arisen independently from the preservation of sports.
Somehow or other the fowls seemed to have the pip, while the three cocks, one a splendid silver and gold fellow, who lorded over the harem of Dorkings and Brahmas, all looked torn and bedraggled as if they had given way to dissipated habits.
I would as lief wear a calico dress, and let the little foxes have their mammies to feed them; and I was willing to bet all my money that we would have as much ham, and as many greens next summer as we ever had. And if the foxes took Hoods' Dorkings again, let them build a coop with safe foundations.
"Well, they have certainly taken you at your word," I said, "as far as variety is concerned." The man with the manners of a marquess seemed to have been at great pains to send a really representative selection of fowls. There were blue ones, black ones, white, grey, yellow, brown, big, little, Dorkings, Minorcas, Cochin Chinas, Bantams, Wyandottes. It was an imposing spectacle.
We had a long and intensely uninteresting conversation about the maladies to which chickens are subject. He was verbose and reminiscent. He took me over his farm, pointing out as we went Dorkings with pasts, and Cochin Chinas which he had cured of diseases generally fatal on, as far as I could gather, Christian Science principles.
Young men make those connexions in their early lives and rue them all their days after. He was heartily sorry, that we may take for granted. He wished to lead a proper life. My grandmother managed this business with the Dorkings. Lady Kew still pulls stroke oar in our boat, you know, and the old woman will not give up her place. They know everything, the elders do. He is a clever fellow.
From that day to this, nobody in the poultry yard has ever spoken of the shiny egg, and the Dorkings are much liked by the other fowls. Yet if it had not been for her trouble, Mrs. Dorking and her neighbors would never have become such good friends. The little Dorkings are fine, fat-breasted Chicks, with the extra toe on each foot of which all that family are so proud. "Quack!
The farmyard people still tell of the day when a Hawk swooped down on one of the young Dorkings and would have carried him off if the Black Spanish Cock had not jumped out, and pecked him and struck at him with his spurs, and fought, until the Hawk was glad to hurry away.
It was very foolish, of course, to be proud of such things, but when the other fowls said, "We should think you would be cold without feathers on your legs," they answered, "Oh, we are Shanghais, and our family never wear feathers there!" And that was true, just as it is true that the Dorkings have extra toes, and that the Black Spanish fowls have white ears.
"Nobody," answered their mother proudly. "They knew without being told. That is the way a Duck takes to water." And she gave a dainty lurch and was among her brood. "Well!" exclaimed the Dorking Cock. "I thought the little Dorkings were as bright as children could be, but they didn't know as much as that. I must tell them." He stalked off, talking under his breath.
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