22 AUGUST 1925, Page 17

TABBIES

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I noticed in your issue of June 20th, in a notice of " A Calendar of the Court Minutes of the East India Company," a parenthesis explaining" incardinate tabbies " as probably incarnadine taffeta." It may interest your readers to know the derivation of " tabby." It was a name first given to watered silk which came from the town of At Tabbi in Arabia. Tabby cats were so called because of the resemblance of the markings on their coats to the " watering " on the silk.— I am, Sir, &c., C.M.S. Hospital, Old Cairo, Egypt. S. F. G. BATSMAN.