184 Idle Days in Patagonia. 
distinctly until almost within striking distance. 
Another remarkable case is that of the armadillo. 
Of two species I can confidently say that, if they 
are not blind, they are next door to blindness ; yet 
they are diurnal animals that go abroad in the full 
glare of noon and wander far in search of food. 
But their sense of smell is marvellously acute, and, 
as in the case of the mole, it has made sight super- 
fluous. 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 better 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 heen 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. 
