THE KING’S BEE-MASTER 149 
marvel was never even suspected. As the drones, 
therefore, were never seen to approach the worker 
bees or to notice them in any way, and as also young 
bees were bred in the hives during many months 
when no drones existed at all, Rusden’s ingenuity 
was equal to the task of bringing them into line 
with his theory. 
If he had lived a few decades earlier, and it had 
been Cromwell, instead of the heartless, middle-aged 
rake of a sovereign, whom he had to propitiate, no 
doubt Rusden would have asked his public to 
swallow Pliny’s whole apiarian philosophy at a 
gulp. Bee-life would then have been held up as a 
foreshadowing of celestial conditions, and the facts 
would have lent themselves to this view equally as 
well. But his task was to represent the economy 
of the hive as a clear proof of divine authority in 
kingship, and it must be conceded that, as far as 
knowledge went in those days, he established his 
case. 
His book was published under the egis of the 
Royal Society, and ‘“‘ by his Majestie’s especial 
Command,’’ which was less a testimony of the 
King’s love for natural history than of his political 
astuteness. Apart, however, from its peculiar 
mission, the book is interesting as a sidelight on 
the old bee-masters and their ways. Probably it 
represents very fairly the extent of knowledge at 
the time, which had evidently advanced very little 
since the days of Virgil. Rusden taught, with the 
ancients, that honey was a secretion from the stars, 
and that wax was gathered from the flowers, as well 
as the generative matter before mentioned. He had 
