170 Idle Days in Patagonia. 
chapter, once informed me that always after the 
first few rounds of a game he knew some of the 
cards, and could recognize them as they were being 
dealt out, by means of certain slight shades of 
difference in the colouring of the backs. He had 
turned his attention to this business when very 
young, and as he was close upon fifty when he 
imparted this interesting piece of information, and 
had always existed comfortably on his winnings, I 
saw no reason to disbelieve what he told me. Yet 
this very man, whose vision was keen enough to 
detect differences in cards so slight that another 
could not see them, even when pointed out—this 
preternaturally sharp-eyed individual was greatly 
surprised when I explained to him that half-a-dozen 
birds of the sparrow kind, that fed in his courtyard, 
and sang and built their nests in his garden and 
vineyard and fields, were not one but six distinct 
species. He had never seen any difference in them: 
they all had the same customs, the same motions ; 
in size, colour, 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 
interests 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 
