THE SECOND STORY--BABY OYSTERS AND FISH
=The story of baby oysters.=--Before telling this story to my little girls
I reviewed the story of the plants. This refreshed in their minds
certain very important laws that they had learned in the first talk.
This talk was given when they were about six and eight years old.
In studying the story of life among the plants, you will remember that
we learned that in most plants the male and female organs of sex were in
the same flower. Among the lower forms of animal life, we find both the
male and female natures in the same animal. The oyster furnishes a good
example. These little animals are surrounded with and fastened to a very
hard and heavy shell. These animals live in great masses and their
shells are cemented together. Growing in this way they cannot move
about, or mix and mingle with each other. The mother parts of the oyster
produce little eggs which are fertilized by a substance formed by other
organs containing the father nature. The fertilized egg, when laid,
floats off and becomes attached to the shell of some oyster on a nearby
rock. Later, it hatches and the little baby oyster forms about its body
a hard shell that is made larger as the little animal grows. In this way
the little oysters come into the world. Among the oysters, we find the
same laws that we found in the plants, _i. e._, each baby oyster must
have a father and mother and the father and mother natures must unite.
In the plants the father and mother natures unite in a little seed; in
the oyster this union takes place in a little egg.
When God made the fish, lizards, snakes, birds and higher animals, he
gave to one a papa or male nature, with suitable sexual organs; to
another animal of the same kind he gave a mamma or female nature, with
suitable female or sexual organs. In the plants we find that the female
sexual organs, the ovaries, produced little seed. We found that the male
sexual organs, the stamens, produced a fine powdery substance called
pollen. Among the animals, the sexual organs of the mother produces
little eggs and the sexual organs of the father produces a fluid called
semen.
=The story of baby fish.=--Now we will study the fish. In the spring
season of the year thousands of tiny eggs are formed in the ovaries of
the mother fish. When these eggs are matured, the mother fishes swim in
large crowds, called “schools,” from the deep water of a stream, river
or sea to some shallow place that seems to them to be suitable for a
nest or home for their young. The mother fishes lay their eggs in a
mass of albuminous substance, like the white of an egg, that spreads out
in a very thin sheet holding the little eggs one in a place and close
together. The father fishes swim along sometimes a foot, a yard or more
behind the mothers and expel from their bodies the semen that unites
with and fertilizes the eggs. This special fluid of the male fish is
formed by his sexual glands, called testes. In this way the father
nature unites with the mother nature to produce every little fish that
comes into this world.
=Why the mother fish lays so many eggs.=--The female fish forms thousands
of these little eggs in her body each year. The female codfish has been
known to lay as many as 6,000,000 eggs in one season. You could not
count as many in a lifetime. The reason why the mother fish produces so
many eggs is, that not one fish egg in twenty-five, on an average, will
ever hatch and not more than one out of twenty-five little fishes ever
grow to be an inch long. They have little, or no, protection, and they
have so many enemies. There are hogs, turtles, crocodiles and
alligators; the ducks, geese and other water fowls; as well as most of
the fish that feed upon fish eggs and small fish. That the streams,
rivers and seas may be kept supplied with an abundance of fish, God has
planned for the mother fish to lay thousands of eggs.
=All baby fish are orphans.=--Most kinds of fish leave their eggs as soon
as they are laid and fertilized and never see or know their young. There
are a few male fish, known as game fish, which swim over and around the
eggs until they are hatched to keep other kinds of fish from eating the
eggs. As soon as the eggs are hatched, he leaves. In this way all little
fish grow up as orphans. They never know or enjoy the presence of their
parents. The parent fish do not labor or sacrifice for their young, and,
for this reason, they have no love for them. Should they ever meet their
young in the river or sea they would have no way of knowing them or of
feeling any sense of joy.
=Fish do not pair off.=--We found in the study of the plants that the seed
were fertilized while in the pod or ovary. In the fish we found that the
eggs are fertilized outside of the mother’s body. In nearly all the
animals above the fish the eggs or ova are fertilized while in the
mother’s body. There is no love between the male and the female fish.
They do not pair off and live in families. Among all the spiders,
lizards, serpents, many of the insects, crawfish, frogs and toads there
is a tendency, at certain seasons, for the male to choose a female with
a view to a home and family. But among all the animals we have named,
many of the male and female animals part or leave each other as soon as
the eggs are fertilized, and all the others leave each other as soon as
the eggs are hatched. The love of the male for the female lasts but for
a little time; while there is no love for their young after they are
hatched. Before the young are hatched some of their parents show
interest in their eggs and make some provisions for their young when
hatched. But this is all done before the young are hatched. The young
all grow up as little orphans.