21 = 



MISS SIMPSON'S BROWN TABBY " PERSIMMON. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



BROWN TABBY PERSIANS. 



MY first prize-winning kitten was a brown 

 tabby, exhibited many years ago at the 

 Crystal Palace. He became my stud 

 cat " Rajah," called after an Indian prince 

 who was visiting us at that time. " Rajah " 

 was wholly and devotedly attached to the 

 lady of his choice, namely, my blue Persian 

 " Mater." These two names occur in the 

 pedigree of many a prize-winner of the present 

 day, and very numerous were the lovely litters 

 I reared from this eminently respectable pair 

 of Persians. I never knew either " Rajah " or 

 "Mater" troubled with a day's illness, and if 

 one of their kittens had died such an event 

 would have caused as much astonishment as 

 grief. But I must return to my tabbies. 



I cannot explain it, but certain it is that 

 of all the feline race (blues not excepted) the 

 warmest corner in my heart has always been 

 kept for the brown tabbies. There is some- 

 thing so comfortable and homely about 

 these dear brownies they seem to have more 

 intelligent and expressive countenances than 

 any other cats, and I am firmly of opinion 



that no Persian cats are so healthy and 

 strong as brown tabbies. They are a hardy 

 race, and as such I have frequently recom- 

 mended novices in the fancy to start with a 

 good brown queen, and with ordinary care they 

 may reasonably expect to rear litter after 

 litter without the difficulties and disasters that 

 one hears of in connect on with the bringing 

 up of Persian kittens in general. 



I know there is a kind of idea that brown 

 tabbies are a common sort of cat, and this 

 breed is often spoken of in a most dis- 

 paraging way. Then, again, the ignorant in 

 the cat world have an extraordinary notion 

 that tabbies are always females ! Perhaps 

 because we sometimes hear a meddlesome or 

 gossiping woman called a "tabby" and I 

 had a dear old friend who always bade me 

 beware of " tabby bipeds " among catty com- 

 munities ! 



The word "tabby" is supposed to have had 

 its origin in a certain street in Bagdad called 

 "Atab," which was chiefly inhabited by 

 weavers of a particular kind of material called 



