THE SENSES 



difficult to understand, for ages ago they must have ceased to have the 

 slightest need for it. The olfactory nerves are simple and after pierc- 

 ing the cribriform plates, are distributed to the mucous membrane of 

 the narial passages. Needless to say, water cannot come into contact 

 with these nerve endings, so they could not have taken over any aber- 

 rant taste function, and it is well nigh inconceivable that any message 

 which they might receive by this means from the atmosphere would 

 have any significance for them. Kellogg (1928), however, thinks that 

 "the retention of the sense of smell (in the mysticetes) may be due in 

 a larger measure to the actual mechanical construction of the skull than 

 to the need of such organs." 



Olfactory apparatus has ben found in fetal Odontoceti but the adults 

 have lost it and the cribriform plates are imperforate. Again Kellogg 

 says that in modern toothed whales "mechanical changes in the re- 

 lations of the component parts of the odontocete type of skull appear to 

 have restricted at first and finally prevented the physiological function- 

 ing of the olfactory apparatus." 



[75 1 



