As we have seen, the leaves, from which, in their state of pulp, the mushrooms spring, are stored up by the ants in large underground chambers; but these mushroom-beds, or gardens, as they are often called, are themselves a sort of nest, containing tunnels and chambers, and not merely unformed heaps. It is in one or other of these chambers that the queen ant of the nest resides, a majestic creature, almost an inch long, but inflated both with pride and eggs to a disproportionate extent. Her sons and virgin daughters, who will some day be queens themselves, keep her company, whilst all about in the galleries and all over the broad, flat surface of the garden, which resembles a large flattened sponge, walk the different castes of workers, some large, some small, some medium-sized, with a few big-headed soldiers here and there amongst them, as though to keep the crowd in order. Whether they have really any such duty assigned them we do not know, but they do not appear to do any work, whilst the others are all busy at something, and the smaller workers particularly keep threading the stalks and filaments of the fungus in order to weed out any extraneous useless growth from amongst it.[63] It is a sad reflection—thus sighs Professor Wheeler—that so much ordered energy, such apparent intelligence, should all be really due to—_what_ he does not seem to be quite certain about, not automatism entirely perhaps, but if not, then semi- or demi-semi-automatism, tempered with “psychic plasticity.” Against this view of the matter we have that of Belt, who, after giving two instances, which came under his own observation, of intelligent adaptation, on the part of ants, to meet particular circumstances, exclaims, “Can it be contended that such insects are not able to determine by reasoning powers which is the best way of doing a thing, or that their actions are not guided by thought and reflection?”[64] But then Belt was not provided with the term “psychic plasticity,” and without it he could only infer intelligence from any intelligent act.