NO. 8 INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF THE CETACEA WINGE 4/ 



NOTES 



' (P. I.) The present treatise on Cetacea is a continuation of the 

 series of memoirs on the other orders of mammals which have 

 appeared in E Museo Lundii, vols. 1-3, 1887- 19 15, and in the Vidensk. 

 Medd. Dansk Naturhist. Foren., vol. 68, 191 7. Part of the opinions 

 that are here expressed have been previously published in the Vidensk. 

 Medd. Dansk Naturhist. Foren. for 1882, pp. 29-31, 40 and 53-55; 

 ibid., for 1909, pp. 5-9; Meddelelser om GrjzJnland, pt. 21, 1902, 

 pp. 364-368; Danmarks Fauna, Pattedyr, 1908, pp. 9-10, 200-209. 



^ (P. I.) On the origin of the Cetacea very different opinions 

 have been put forward. The idea of Brandt and others that the 

 Cetacea are the lowest, most reptilian mammals is now shared by 

 scarcely any one. Likewise the old idea of the relationship with 

 sea-cows was long ago laid aside. Flower's early opinion that the 

 whales originated from seals, an opinion which he shared with others, 

 was disputed by Winge (Vidensk. Medd., 1882, pp. 53-55) and 

 almost abandoned by Flower himself. It was not taken up by others 

 except in a way by D'Arcy Thompson. D'Arcy Thompson's opinion 

 (On the Systematic Position of Zeuglodon; Studies from the 

 Museum of Zoology in University College, Dundee, vol. 9, 1890, 

 pp. 1-8, with illustrations) that the Zeuglodonts, really the most 

 primitive whales, are not Cetacea, but near relatives of the seals, is 

 disproved by Lydekker (Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1892, pp. 560- 

 561) and Dames (Ueber Zeuglodonten aus Aegypten, etc.; Palaeont. 

 Abhandl., herausgeg. von Dames u. Kayser, vol. 5, pt. 5, 1894, section 

 pp. 204-210). Flower's ideas about the whale's relationship to par- 

 ticular ungulates proper other than sea-cows have also shown them- 

 selves to be incorrect. The author who has most extensively ex- 

 amined the question in earlier times is Max Weber in his booki 

 Studien iiber Saugethiere, ein Beitrag zur Frage nach dem Ursprung 

 der Cetaceen, 1886, which contains a review of earlier work on the 

 subject. His own conception of the history of the Cetacea was then 

 " dass sie einem generalisirten Saugethiertypus im mesozoischem 

 Zeitalter entstammen, der zwischen Carnivora und Ungulata mitten 

 inne steht, wohl aber nahere Beziehungen zu Carnivora hatte " (/. c, 

 p. 241). In his work Die Saugethiere, 1904 (p. 581), Max Weber 

 sets forth the idea that " primitive Condylarthrer " were perhaps most 

 nearly the precursors of the whales. 



