THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 01.] SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1857. [Price 1 i. 
INCREDULITY. 
When anything new is announced as 
having happened, or being likely to 
happen, our first feeling is incredulity. 
We do not believe it. Hence it is 
that all discoverers and inventors have 
to fight a battle with nearly the whole 
of their race. Columbus was viewed 
as an idle dreamer because he main- 
tained land was to be found by sailing 
westward, and had he gone to America 
alone, how many would have believed 
his report of what he saw there? Was 
a black swan believed when first heard 
of? Is it any wonder then that people 
shake their heads and look solemn when 
you speak of MeliUea Dia P Why a 
wise man, if he took the insect, would 
destroy it, and mention the circum- 
stance to no one, knowing that if he 
let it transpire to his most intimate 
friend that he had himself caught a 
living Dia , his name would, within a 
few weeks, be trumpeted throughout 
England, as one who invented! — as 
one who narrated falsehoods for 
truth ! 
Mistakes do occur, and will occur, 
but does it follow from that, that every 
thing which is new is a mistake ? 
Sacraria at Plymouth was impossible, 
— Sacraria in September proved the 
imposture! Sacraria in Sweden had 
previously been recorded, — Sacraria in 
September, — why! Mr. Wollaston took 
it in Madeira at the end of September ! 
The opponents of the fact must find 
some further objection. 
Now we know nothing further of 
Dia ourselves than what has appeared 
in our columns; most of our readers 
know no more, yet we dare say that 
many of them are disposed to joke at 
the story as improbable. 
Incredulity is not a fault confined 
to a few — it is very general; we are 
sometimes annoyed at our own amount 
of incredulity, which often leads us, 
when a correspondent sends us some 
larva or moth, which he expects to be 
new, to refer it to some already known 
species, either as a trifle different, or 
a strongly marked variety : time goes 
on, investigations proceed, and in a 
year or two our reputed variety is 
accepted universally as a good and 
distinct species, and this “ consumma- 
tion so devoutly to be wished” might 
have been sooner arrived at, but for 
the cold water thrown on the dis- 
covery, when first reported, by our 
incredulity. It is very natural that 
when some totally new habit of in- 
sects is first recorded, we should be 
K. 
