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V. A Description of some Insects which appear to exemplify 
Mr. William S. MacLeay’s Doctrine of Affinity and Analogy. 
By the Rev. William Kirby, M.A. F.R.S. and L.S. 
Read December 17, 1822. 
No objects are more interesting to the scientific naturalist than 
those which assume the external appearance of one tribe, while 
their more essential characters and their habits indicate that they 
belong to another. These objects a prima facie survey would 
often induce us to refer to a very different set of beings from 
that to which a more intimate acquaintance with their peculiar 
diagnostics and economy would lead us. And we shall find, 
the further we extend our researches, the traces of that plan 
of Creative Wispom by which a symbolical relationship, if I 
may so call it, connects such of his creatures, as in other respects 
are placed in opposition to each other, as well as a natural affinity 
those that really approximate. Writers in every department of 
natural history, when they have been endeavouring to thread the 
labyrinth of affinities, have been extremely puzzled by this re- 
markable circumstance. They were aware that those species 
which connect two proximate tribes, generally partake of the 
characters of both ; but they were not sufficiently aware of this 
resemblance between objects that are connected by little or no 
affinity. Hence it has happened, not unfrequently, that objects 
have been referred not to the tribe to which they are really related, 
but to that which they resemble in some of their less essential 
characters. 
Mr. 
