THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 220.] 
THIS SIDE. 
We called attention last week to the 
inconveniences attending on the habit 
of not regarding the other side; we 
now wish to say a few words on 
the unpleasant consequences resulting 
from a too exclusive study of this 
side. 
The two subjects are phases only of 
the same thing, but still there is suffi- 
cient difference in their effects upon 
us to render it desirable to notice 
them both. He who ignores the other 
side loses a valuable corrective which 
would aid him in arriving at a just 
conclusion ; but, besides that, he who 
studies only this side views it, as it 
were, out of focus, and, from the want 
of objects of comparison, is quite un- 
able to form to himself a correct notion 
of what the object he is looking at 
really is. Hence objects viewed ex- 
clusively from this side become to us 
misshapen and distorted, because we 
view them through an ill-suited me- 
dium ; to know this side thoroughly we 
must get to view it in every possible 
direction. 
[Price 1 d. 
If a small metallic moth be brought 
to us for identification, we never dream 
of being content with looking at it 
only in one position ; we turn it about ; 
we expose' it to the light at different 
angles, and endeavour by this means 
to ascertain what is the total number 
of markings it bears on its wings, 
together with their position and form. 
One spot is only apparent when the 
insect is held at one particular angle ; 
the outline of another marking can 
only be traced when the insect is 
looked at very obliquely in one direc- 
tion ; yet were we to proceed to de- 
scribe this insect we should enumerate 
all the markings that we could trace 
by turning the insect in every con- 
ceivable direction, and any description 
of it in which only those markings 
should be mentioned which could be 
seen from one particular direction would 
seem to us strangely incomplete and 
defective ; yet this would simply be a 
case of viewing a thing too exclusively 
from this side. 
The too exclusive study of any sub- 
ject from one side dwarfs our intellect, 
narrows our judgment and perverts our 
notions. But we have probably said 
N 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1800 
