Note 165 — Chapter XIV · MORSE AND MAHLEMOÖT.

It is, and always will be, a source of sincere regret to me and my friends that I did not bodily preserve this huge paunch and its contents. It would have filled a half-barrel very snugly, and then its mass of freshly swallowed clams (Mya truncata), filmy streaks of macerated kelp, and fragments of crustaceans, could have been carefully examined during a week of leisure at the Smithsonian Institution. It was, however, ripped open so quickly by one of the Aleutes, who kicked the contents out, that I hardly knew what had been done ere the strong-smelling subject was directly under my nose. The natives then were anxious that I should hurry through with my sketches, measurements, etc., so that they might the sooner push off their egg-laden bidarrah and cross back to the main island before the fogs would settle over our homeward track, or the rapidly rising wind shift to the northward and imperil our passage. Weighty reasons these, which so fully impressed me, that this unique stomach of a carnivora was overlooked and left behind; hence, with the exception of curiously turning over the clams (especially those uncrushed specimens), which formed the great bulk of its contents, I have no memoranda or even distinct recollection of the other materials that were incorporated.