d or has conceived.

_The Process._ The process of fecundation is briefly as follows. An
ovum becomes mature, breaks through its Graafian follicle in the ovary
and is set free. It is caught by the fimbriated or trumpet-shaped
extremity of the Fallopian tube and, moved by the wave-like motion of
the cilia[4] of the lining of the tube, it begins its travel towards
the uterus. If no sexual intercourse has taken place nothing happens.
The ovum dries up, or "dies," and either remains somewhere in the tube
or womb or is removed from the latter with the menstruation, or mucous
discharge. But if intercourse has taken place, thousands and thousands
of the male germ cells or spermatozoa enter the uterus through its
opening or external os, and begin to travel upward in search of the
ovum. The spermatozoa are capable of independent motion, and they
travel pretty fast. It is claimed that they can travel an inch in
seven minutes, which is pretty fast when you take into consideration
that a spermatozooen is only 1/300 of an inch long. Many of the
spermatozoa, weaker than the others, perish on the way, and only a few
continue the journey up through the uterus to the tube. When near the
little ovum, which remains passive, their movements become more and
more rapid, they seem to be attracted to it as if by a magnet, and
finally one spermatozooen--just one--the one that happens to be the
strongest or the nearest, makes a mad rush at it with its head,
perforates it, and is completely swallowed up by it. As soon as the
spermatozooen has been absorbed by the ovum, the opening through which
it got in becomes tightly sealed up--a coagulation takes place near
it--so that no other spermatozoa can enter the ovum. For if two or
more spermatozoa got into the same ovum a monstrosity would be apt to
be the result.

[Illustration: SPERMATOZOOeN PENETRATING THE OVUM.]

What becomes of all the other spermatozoa? They perish. Only one is
needed. But in the ovum that has been impregnated, and which is now
called an embryo, a feverish activity commences. First of all it looks
for a fixed place of abode. If the ovum happened to be in the uterus
when the spermatozooen met and entered it, it remains there. It becomes
attached to some spot in the lining of the womb and there it grows and
develops, until at the end of nine months it has reached its full
growth, and the womb opens and it comes out into the outside world. If
the ovum is in the Fallopian tu