PHP5 silently throwing exceptions???

Im currently using php 5.0.3 on a dev box, trying to figure out how to correctly use exceptions in my code. Per chance, I was monitoring the __autoload() function, and Im noticing that calls are being made to exception classes that I've setup. But nothing is being actually thrown. As I understand it, __autoload(), only gets called, if a class file hasn't been loaded for a class. I know for a fact that all my exception classes are derived from php's Exception class. I've debugged it down to this -> //try //{ $db->connect(); //} //catch(databaseException $e) //{

//    throw $e;

//} The ::connect() method is supposed to throw a databaseException if a connection cannot be made. In my tests, connections are made, and the exception is not thrown. But the try/catch block above, for some reason, tries to throw the databaseException (according to __autoload()). If I comment it out the try/catch block, __autoload() doesn't try to load the databaseException object. I dont know if this is a bug in my code, as Im still new to exceptions. Im just checking to see if anyone else experienced anything like this before... Thanks