THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 135.] SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 1859 ITeice Id. 
ANOMALIES. 
At the last Meeting of the Entomo- 
logical Society there were exhibited 
some remarkable insects sent home by 
Mr. Wallace from New Guinea, or some 
other anthropophagous place in the 
Indian Seas, and among them two 
Diptera, with appendages projecting 
below the eyes. From their position 
these were clearly not antenna, which 
they somewhat resembled ; in one in- 
sect they were shaped like a spatula, 
in the other they were branched like 
a young stag’s horns. In remarking 
on the singularity of these appendages 
and their forms, one of our best ento- 
mologists said “ they were quite ano- 
malous,” for which phrase he was 
called to order by the President. The 
Member then contended that if we 
knew a thousand related insects ex- 
hibiting only slight variation in any 
particular organ, and we then dis- 
covered another species of the same 
group with that organ of a totally 
different structure, we were justified 
in calling it anomalous. The Presi- 
dent, however, persisted in saying that 
Nature has no anomalies, and in this 
he was supported by one of the Mem- 
bers, who observed that it is only the 
incompleteness of our knowledge of 
Nature’s works that makes us think 
anything anomalous that is not within 
the bounds of our experience, and 
that if we had inhabited the country 
where the present insects occur, we 
should think that our now ordinary 
forms were exceptional. Be this as it 
may, we should learn by the discoveries 
of new insect forms continually made 
by exotic explorers, how little we can 
yet comprehend the System of Nature. 
We build up a system, and think it 
is an assemblage of congruities, when 
we all at once find insects that will 
not fit into the structure, and straight- 
way we call them “anomalies,” or 
blinking the question of their obvious 
differences we force them into some 
of our pre-arranged or pre-conceived 
groups. 
We need not go beyond the Euro- 
pean Fauna to find examples in point. 
Look at the Psychidas, which are not 
very nearly related to any group of 
Lepidoptera now known to be extant, 
and yet the latest idea is to place 
them among the Tineina, which, again, 
it would not be difficult to show have 
no character in common inter se, not 
even size, which has been so much 
relied upon (and whence the Division 
has its name), to entitle them to be 
