Following up on Gina's tortie/calico "side thread" - in most of the books I've referred to, it says that most cat fancy clubs consider the tortoiseshell to be only black and orange, and consider a calico to be black, orange, and white. In one book I read it went further to say that in reality (and this was a book on genetics) a calico is nothing but a tortoiseshell and white, and after informally studying (I've had two calicos and a tortoishell point-the most unusually colored cat I've ever seen- in the past) I think that's true, and all the calicos I've seen have the typical "and white" pattern. Anyway, for what it's worth...