164 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



toms, the same motions; in size, color, and shape 

 they were all one ; to his hearing they all chirped 

 and twittered alike, and warbled the same song. 



And as it was with this man, so, to some extent, 

 it is with all of us. That special thing which in- 

 terests us, and in which we find our profit or 

 pleasure, we see very distinctly, and our memories 

 are singularly tenacious of its image ; while other 

 things, in which we take only a general interest, 

 or which are nothing to us, are not seen so sharply, 

 and soon become blurred in memory ; and if there 

 happens to be a pretty close resemblance in sev- 

 eral of them, as in the case of my gambling 

 friend's half-a-dozen sparrows, which, like snow- 

 flakes, were "seen rather than distinguished," this 

 indistinctness of their images on the eye and the 

 mind causes them all to appear alike. We have, as 

 it were, two visions one to which all objects ap- 

 pear vividly and close to us, and are permanently 

 photographed on the mind; the other which sees 

 things at a distance, and with that indistinctness 

 of outline and uniformity of color which distance 

 gives. 



In this place I had proposed to draw on my La 

 Plata note-books for some amusing illustrations of 

 this fact of our two sights ; but it is not necessary 

 to go so far afield for illustrations, or to insist 

 on a thing so familiar. ' ' The shepherd knows his 

 sheep, " is a saying just as true of this country 

 of Scotland, at all events as of the far East. 

 Detectives, also military men who take an interest 



