TABBY CATS. 



53 



place I am at present unable to get the least clue, though 

 I think from what I gather from one of the Crystal 

 Palace Cat Show catalogues, that it must have been after 

 1597, as the excerpt shows that at that time the shape and 

 colour was like a leopard's, which, of course, is spotted, 

 and is always called the spotted leopard. (Since this I have 

 learned that the domestic cat is said to have been brought 

 from Cyprus by merchants, as also was the tortoiseshell. 

 Cyprus is a colour, a sort of reddish-yellow, something like 

 citron ; so a Cyprus cat may mean a red or yellow tabby.) 



However, I find Holloway, in his " Dictionary of Pro- 

 vinciahsms " (1839), gives the following : — 



. "CaHmanco Cat, s. {calimanco, a glossy stuff), a tortoise- 

 shell cat, Norfolk." 



