178 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



marvelously acute, and, as in the case of the 

 mole, it has made sight superfluous. To come back 

 to man: if, in a state of nature, he is able to 

 guess the character of objects nine times in ten, 

 or nineteen in twenty, seen as far as he requires to 

 see anything, his intellectual faculties make a bet- 

 ter sight unnecessary. If the armadillo's scent 

 had not been so keen, and man had not been gifted 

 with nimble brains, the sight in both cases would 

 have been vastly stronger; but the sharpening of 

 its sense of smell has dimmed the armadillo 's eyes 

 and made him blinder than a snake; while man 

 (from no fault of his own) is unable to see farther 

 than the wolf and the ostrich and the wild ass. 



