91 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



Brontosaurus, in some respects the biggest 

 brute that ever walked, was but Httle better off, 

 and Triceratops, and his relatives, creatures 

 having twice the bulk of an elephant, weighing 

 probably over ten tons, possessed a brain weigh- 

 ing not over two pounds ! 



How much of what we term intelligence 

 could such a creature possess — what was the 

 extent of its reasoning powers ? Judging from 

 our own standpoint and the small amount of 

 intellect apparent in some humans with much 

 larger brains, these big reptiles must have 

 known just about enough to have eaten when 

 they were hungry, anything more was super- 

 fluous. 



However, intelligence is one thing, life an- 

 other, and the spinal cord, with its supply of 

 nerve-substance, doubtless looked after the 

 mere mechanical functions of life ; and while 

 even the spinal cord is in many cases quite 

 small, in some places, particularly in the sacral 

 region, it is subject to considerable enlarge- 

 ment. This is notably true of Stegosaurus, 

 where the sacral enlargement is twenty times 

 the bulk of the puny brain — a fact noted by 



