78 A BOOK OF WHALES 



highest animal of all, man, is markedly and abund- 

 antly convoluted. It cannot be said, however, that 

 the titanic whale is largely superior in intelligence to 

 the small and active Marmoset ; and yet, if the con- 

 volutions of the brain were to be alone considered, this 

 would have to be the opinion. For the Marmoset's 

 brain is not far from being quite smooth, while we 

 have already commented upon the markedly con- 

 voluted character of that of the whale. The real 

 relationship appears to be between size of body and 

 complication of the brain's surface. And this is more 

 obvious when nearly-related animals are compared 

 with each other. The Marmoset, for instance, has a 

 smoother brain than the Gorilla ; the Rhinoceros 

 and the Hippopotamus have much more furrowed 

 brains than the smaller Ungulates. Our whales are, 

 curiously enough, an exception to this generalisation ; 

 it cannot be said that the great Rorqual or Sperm 

 whale has a brain which is at all definitely superior 

 in the number of its convolutions to the brains of 

 smaller whales. Can we in any way account for the 

 curious shape and the great convolution of the brain 

 surface in Cetacea ? In the first place it is as well 

 to be convinced that they do want accounting for. 

 This can hardly be doubted ; the singular shape of 

 the hemispheres of the whale are so peculiar that 

 they suffice to define the group ; there is nothing like 

 it elsewhere among mammals. Then aram there are 



o o 



some reasons for considering the whales to occupy a 

 low position in the mammalian series, reasons which 

 will be dealt with on another page. We should expect, 



