Pinched off a website
"Not A Smoke - A young non-smoke cat has a kitten coat that is often a lot lighter than the base color of the cat. The cat can look like a smoke, but because neither parent cat has a white undercoat, the kitten cannot be a smoke. The kitten coat will darken as the cat gets older.
Smoke - Often difficult to tell from solid color kittens except that smokes sometimes have white around the eyes and a paler stomach. May take some months to tell which kittens will be smoke because the full coat color is sometimes not seen until the adult coat comes in at 2 years. Undercoat begins to show at 3 weeks, and by 6-8 weeks have a mottled look."
I took this photo of Luther yesterday morning. He's getting far too adventurous for his own good. As soon as I could reach I grabbed him by the scruff and hauled him off! Naughty child!
As regard to the colour he has got white eyeliner which is apparent in some photos ... and the paler mottled stomach. Genetics are so fascinating!
