haps in the
sewer, and the doctor gets them out and takes them to sick folks
that want them, or the milkman brings them early in the morning;
they are dug out of the ground, or bought at the baby store."

In England and America the inquisitive child is often told that
the baby was found in the garden, under a gooseberry bush or
elsewhere; or more commonly it is said, with what is doubtless
felt to be a nearer approach to the truth, that the doctor
brought it. In Germany the common story told to children is that
the stork brings the baby. Various theories, mostly based on
folk-lore, have been put forward to explain this story, but none
of them seem quite convincing (see, e.g., G. Herman,
"Sexual-Mythen," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, vol. i, Heft 5,
1906, p. 176, and P. Naecke, _Neurologische Centralblatt_, No. 17,
1907). Naecke thinks there is some plausibility in Professor
Petermann's suggestion that a frog writhing in a stork's bill
resembles a tiny human creature.

In Iceland, according to Max Bartels ("Islaendischer Brauch und
Volksglaube," etc., _Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_, 1900, Heft 2
and 3) we find a transition between the natural and the fanciful
in the stories told to children of the origin of babies (the
stork is here precluded, for it only extends to the southern
border of Scandinavian lands). In North Iceland it is said that
God made the baby and the mother bore it, and on that account is
now ill. In the northwest it is said that God made the baby and
gave it to the mother. Elsewhere it is said that God sent the
baby and the midwife brought it, the mother only being in bed to
be near the baby (which is seldom placed in a cradle). It is also
sometimes said that a lamb or a bird brought the baby. Again it
is said to have entered during the night through the window.
Sometimes, however, the child is told that the baby came out of
the mother's breasts, or from below her breasts, and that is why
she is not well.

Even when children learn that babies come out of the mother's
body this knowledge often remains very vague and inaccurate. It
very commonly happens, for instance, in all civilized countries
that the navel is regarded as the baby's point of exit from the
body. This is a natural conclusion, since the navel is seemingly
a channel into the body, and a