calico

"Lizards, skinks and dragons were secured in calico bags. These bags were concealed in bags of popcorn, biscuit tins and a women's handbag and placed inside cardboard boxes," the statement said.

From Barron's ● Feb. 17, 2026

At the time of this story's publication, both are still at the shelter waiting to be adopted . . . although the calico is currently advertised as bonded with a different gray tabby.

From Salon ● Dec. 6, 2024

Scientists have long been fascinated by tortoiseshell and calico cats: the offspring of a black cat and an orange cat.

From Science Magazine ● Nov. 27, 2024

Meet Zia, my dilute calico who enjoys chasing droplets of water in the tub and lying flat on her back, like a fluffy rug in a log cabin.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2024

Aunt Ruby’s dress was wine-colored calico, covered all over with a feathery pattern in lighter wine color.

From "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Hansons' cat is specifically a torn, and cat lovers soon pointed out that all calicoes are female.

From Time Magazine Archive

By the Victorian era, odd batches of brocade, chintzes and calicoes were patched into crazy quilts, more a tour de force in stitchery than in pattern.

From Time Magazine Archive

If she had been home, she might have spent the dark afternoons spinning or sewing, but the mistress bought her woolens and calicoes at the village stores.

From "Lyddie" by Katherine Paterson

All fir-balsam trees and little rustic benches and pink calicoes and Grand Army suits and high cheek-bones and low insteps and—lots of noise?

From The Sick-a-Bed Lady And Also Hickory Dock, The Very Tired Girl, The Happy-Day, Something That Happened in October, The Amateur Lover, Heart of The City, The Pink Sash, Woman's Only Business by Abbott, Eleanor Hallowell

At such times the stores wake up and put out their smartest calicoes and their yellowest saddles with which to tempt the wary Boer and Boeress.

From Yankee Girls in Zulu Land by Vescelius-Sheldon, Louise

Scientists curious about those sex differences—or perhaps just cat lovers—have spent more than 60 years unsuccessfully seeking the gene that causes orange fur and the striking patchwork of colors in calicos and tortoiseshells.

From Science Magazine ● Nov. 27, 2024

Most orange cats are boys, a quirk of feline genetics that also explains why almost all calicos and tortoiseshells are girls.

From Science Magazine ● Nov. 27, 2024

The prints are Laura Ashley-esque micro-florals, calicos and gingham, the necklines are high, sometimes there is a bib or apron, there is usually at least one ruffle.

From New York Times ● Sep. 12, 2018

Rainbow and cc have different coloring, for example, since the coats of calicos are determined partly by genes and partly by random molecular changes during development.

From Time Magazine Archive

Every year, the children watched to see that coat emerge—big and shaggy and always different, sewed with new furs, patched with discarded calicos, even velvets.

From "The Birchbark House" by Louise Erdrich