The birds and the bees
The talk about sex, often colloquially referred to as "the birds and the bees" or "the facts of life", is generally the occasion in most children's lives when their parents explain what sex is. According to tradition, "the birds and the bees" is a metaphorical story sometimes told to children in an attempt to explain the mechanics and results of sexual intercourse through reference to easily observed natural events. For instance, bees carry and deposit pollen into flowers, a visible and easy-to-explain parallel to fertilisation. Female birds laying eggs is a similarly visible and easy-to-explain parallel to ovulation. Possible origins Word sleuths William and Mary Morris hint that it may have been inspired by words like these from the poet Samuel Coleridge (1825): 'All nature seems at work ... The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing ... and I the while, the sole unbusy thing, not honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.'" Dr. Emma Frances Angell Drake (b. 1849) wrote a section of a publication called The Story of Life which was published in 1909. This piece was later picked up and included in Safe Counsel, a product of the Eugenics movement in the late 19th and