I know nothing --I actually thought "Tabby" mean female, as opposed to "Tom" until I read this thread. I then Googled it and got the information from here:
> http://www.penmarric.ns.ca/Pedigree/catbreeds/tabbycat.htm Humm....? My dictionary does define "tabby cat" as meaning "a female domestic cat". -- graywolf http://www.graywolfphoto.com http://webpages.charter.net/graywolf "Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof" ----------------------------------- Doug Franklin wrote: > graywolf wrote: > >> Had to look up that Silver Tabby stuff. Interesting. When did they start >> calling a tiger striped cat a mackerel tabby? > > Hmmm. I'm certainly no expert, but I always thought that the "Tabby" > part described the tiger "strip-ed-ness" and the word before "Tabby" > described the coloration. > > So, the cat Ann posted, and one of my tabbies, are both "silver": light > and dark gray stripes, sometimes with a hint of green hiding in there. > My other "male", however, is a "Red Tabby" or "Orange Tabby". His fur > is striped in dark orange-brown and a light orange that's almost ginger. > > I'm not sure exactly what coloration would be "mackerel". My other two > are "females", and they're "Tortoiseshell Calicos". The Calico refers > to the monotone patches of distinct colors (as opposed to stripes, > etc.). A "Tortoiseshell" calico has a lot of small patches and > sprinkles all run together, usually with a dark base. A "regular" > calico (may have a more "correct" name), has larger, obvious and > distinct patches. > > And that's about the extent of my knowledge of cat coloration, excepting > the "points" that Siamese and related breeds sometimes develop. > > In general, it seems like cats have undergone less common "directed" > breeding than dogs, at least among the general population. There is the > CFA (AKA for cats, pretty much) and shows and stuff, but that seems to > be the minority of the cat population in my experience. For example, > except for a few breeds, most cats you run into on a daily basis just > seem to be "alley cats" or "moggies" or "Heinz 57" or whatever (the > result of cat-directed breeding rather than human-directed breeding). > And there don't seem to be as many people looking for specific breeds > ... most seem to just want a "kitty". > >> So I guess there was >> something fishy about the gray alley cat* we had when I was a kid. Guess >> you have to be a cat enthusiast to know the names of all those different >> color combinations. > > Well, up above I pretty much exhausted my knowledge of cat coloration. :-) > > What was "fishy" about your alley cat? What sort of coloration? > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
