animal possessing it, were (and are) woefully lacking. The only 

 behavioral accounts were those of whalers hunting these 

 animals. Hunters tend to concentrate on the offensive and de- 

 fensive maneuvers of the animal, and can give useful informa- 

 tion for other kinds of evaluation of the animal's behavior and 

 presumed intelligence. 



In 1787 John Hunter, writing in the Philosophical Transac- 

 tioi7s of the Royal Society of London (LXXVII, 423-424), said 

 the following: "The size of the Brain differs much in different 

 genera of this tribe, and likewise in the proportion it bears to the 

 bulk of the animal. In the Porpoise, I believe, it [the proportion] 

 is largest, and perhaps in that respect comes nearest to the hu- 

 man . . . 



"The brain is composed of cortical and medullary substances, 

 very distinctly marked; the cortical being, in colour, like the 

 tubular substance of a kidney; the medullary, very white. These 

 substances are nearly in the same proportion as in the human 

 brain . . .The thalami themselves are large; the corpora striata 

 small ; the crura of the fornix are continued along the windings 

 of the ventricles, much as in the human subject." 



Flatau and Jacobsohn in 1899 wrote, "the large brain of the 

 Porpoise is one of the smallest in the Cetacean Order in which 

 the organ attains to a much greater absolute size than any 

 other."* 



In 1902 G. Elliot Smith wrote of the brain of a species of 

 dolphin called "Delphinus tursio" (which may be the modern 

 Tursiops truncatus) : "This brain is larger and correspondingly 

 richer in sulci than that of the porpoise: but the structure of the 

 two organs is essentially the same." His drawings are shown in 

 Figures 7 and 8. He said further, "the brains of the Beluga and 

 all the dolphins closely resemble that of the porpoise." 



Smith summarizes the discussion of the huge size of the 

 whale's brain. "The apparently extraordinary dimensions of the 

 whale's brain cannot therefore be considered unusual phe- 



34 



