is Furby.

Parents trying to get their hands on this year's hot toy are discovering the gremlin-like furball is both hard to find and expensive.

Furby is out of stock at many stores around the country, and some retailers aren't even sure they will get any for the rest of the holiday season.

Manufacturer Tiger Electronics is flying in Furby dolls to the United States from China to get them to stores faster.

Some desperate shoppers are turning to classified ads and the Internet, where Furby dolls are going for as much as $200 -- more than six times its retail price of $30.

"We have people calling and we don't even have any idea what they look like,'' said Kent Sylvis, an employee at the Store of Knowledge in Dallas, which is waiting for its stock of Furbys to arrive.

The fur began flying off the shelves not long after Wired magazine in September named it the must-have toy for the holidays.

Parents have been lining up for hours to get one of the 5-inch toys, which look sort of like owls with tufts of hair between their huge pink ears. Furby is embedded with a computer chip that allows it to speak its own "furbish'' language.

"I got them early in the season, but I still had to wait hours on line to get them,'' said Shirley Ringstone of Manchester, Connecticut, who waited about four hours to buy two Furbys. "I'm glad I don't have to do it again.'' There have already been scenes reminiscent of the Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch doll crazes of years past, with shoppers lining up before dawn when they hear a shipment may arrive.

Furby