THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 180.] SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1860 [Price Id. 
RESEMBLANCES. 
Things which to one eye appear per- 
fectly similar appear to another eye 
totally different. Yet the things thus 
metamorphosed remain the same; the 
different result is caused by the dif- 
ferent training which the eyes of the 
observers have undergone. 
A flock of sheep appear to the un- 
initiated all alike; but the experienced 
shepherd knows each individual sheep. 
Family likeness, as it is termed, is 
a similarity which strikes a stranger, 
but is not noticed by the family them- 
selves. 
A stranger will mistake two sisters, 
who yet to all who know them appear 
perfectly unlike each other. A laugh- 
able instance occurs to us, in which, 
at a wedding breakfast, when the 
health of the bride was proposed, the 
spokesman addressed himself to the 
bride’s sister, and did not discover his 
mistake till, on concluding his oration, 
he was informed that he had been 
addressing the wrong party ! 
Hence we must expect that those 
who have not studied a tribe of in- 
sects will imagine whole groups of 
species to be identical, which, to the 
student who has really worked at them, 
are manifestly so many distinct spe- 
cies. 
A recent writer seems to have as- 
sumed that a subject might be over- 
studied, and that by constantly working 
at some particular group of animals 
the differences would be magnified, till 
at last species would be multiplied ad 
infinitum . 
We had always understood that “a 
little learning was a dangerous thing,” 
and : we certainly did not expect to 
be cautioned, in these days, of the 
dangers of knowing too much. 
In our view, no amount of general 
and superficial knowledge will atone 
for fthe want of knowing some one 
branch of study very thoroughly and 
minutely, because, without such a 
thorough and intimate knowledge of 
some speciality, the enquirer after 
truth has no standard of comparison 
by which to measure his researches in 
other directions. 
The peasant boy,’ as he gazes up- 
ward on a dark night, imagines he 
sees all the stars ; the astronomer, 
armed with the most powerful tele- 
scopes, knows that, even with their 
aid, he does not see all the stars, and 
that with the naked eye he sees but 
a very small portion of them. 
But surely it is unnecessary to 
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