The wonderful story of life : a mother's talks with her daughter regarding life and its reproduction / reprinted by the British Social Hygiene Council ... by permission of the United States Public Health Service.
- United States Public Health Service
- Date:
- [1933]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The wonderful story of life : a mother's talks with her daughter regarding life and its reproduction / reprinted by the British Social Hygiene Council ... by permission of the United States Public Health Service. Source: Wellcome Collection.
18/28 page 16
![CHAPTER IV. I am sure, Helen Elizabeth, that you know more about the habits of fishes than you did when we began our last talk. You now understand that the salmon come up the fresh water streams from the great Pacific Ocean, and that where the sand is smooth and the sunlight bright the mother salmon lays her eggs. Only if the father salmon comes along afterwards and discharges his milt over these eggs will they grow into little salmon. Of course all fishes do not travel as far as the salmon. Some spend their whole lives in the ocean ; others never go down into the sea ; some stay in lakes and ponds. But all mother fishes lay their eggs where the father fish can pour his milt over them, else there would be no new little fishes and soon no fishes at all. You are, I think, better acquainted with the birds than you were with fishes, and I know you want to hear their story too. How glad you have been to see them again after the cold winter. You have missed their bright colours and their clear songs. But, sure as the spring comes, the birds return from the warmer southland, where they have spent the winter, and now you hear their joyous singing each morning as they welcome the bright sun of the returning day. They are saying that it is good to be alive in such a world, where there are shady trees and beautiful flowers and fat, juicy earthworms. But the birds are singing not always to you and me or to the bright sun. They are singing to each [16]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32172060_0018.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
