COMPARATIVE ANATOMY 



not unlike that of other mammalia, but its smallness 

 is remarkable. In a young specimen, 19 feet long, 

 which weighed 11,200 pounds, the brain weighed 

 only 3 pounds 12 ounces, which is only one three 

 thousandth part of the whole animal ; whilst in man 

 it is calculated to weigh one thirty-fifth part. In 

 a young rostrata, which measured 17 feet, Mr. 

 Hunter found that the brain weighed 4 pounds 8 

 ounces ; and M. Delalande reports that in a rorqual, 

 nearly 80 feet long, the brain filled only a cavity 

 which measured 13 inches by 9. On the other 

 hand, Cuvier states, from five examinations of the 

 porpoise and dolphin, that on the average the brain 

 weighed one sixty-third part of the whole. This 

 statement, regarding these smaller groups, is corro- 

 borated by Tyson, who in his Anatomy of the 

 Porpoise remarks that the brain is large, its figure 

 somewhat short, but what it wants in length it has 

 in breadth ; Ray observes that the largeness of the 

 brain, and its correspondence to man's, argues this 

 creature to be of more than ordinary wit and capa- 

 city; and Tiedemann, the highest living authority 

 in this department, remarks, '* that the brain of the 

 dolphin is distinguished from that of monkies by 

 its great size and developement ; and, next to the 

 brain of the orang-outang, approaches nearest, in this 

 respect, to the human brain." We here introduce a 

 sketch of Tiedemann's plate of the base of the brain 

 in the dolphin, in illustration of his remark; and add, 

 that considering the marked effect which the relative 

 size of this important organ generally has on the 



