of a recent Continental Tour. 271 



the Tete Noir. At first this tremendous gorge is wide and 

 open, but enclosed with lofty mural precipices ; and along its 

 bottom a torrent brawls, swelling its waters at every leap in 

 its progress. A few solitary chalets are scattered under massive 

 rocks, that defend them from the avalanches in winter. 



Proceeding along the side of the torrent, for a consider- 

 able distance, by a nearly level path, after a steep and long 

 descent, and having crossed a rude wooden bridge, the Tete 

 Noir itself, the stupendous precipice from which the pass takes 

 its name, at once opposes itself to view : a mighty mass of 

 solid unbroken rock, it stands, projecting into the valley, in 

 sheer descent above six hundred feet. I sat down on the 

 planks of the wooden bridge, to sketch its noble outline, and 

 was soon surrounded by numbers of huge ants, which came 

 out of, and retreated into, innumerable small holes in the pine 

 timber of the bridge. These ants infest dead pine timber in 

 the south of Europe, and are nearly as great a destruction to 

 it as the lion ant of tropical climates is to every other kind of 

 wood. It is, I believe, the iFbrmica herculanea: its colour is 

 a very dark chestnut, sometimes nearly black. The male is 

 nearly seven eighths of an inch in length, the female larger, 

 and does not sting when about the person, as our ants do : 

 it appears to feed solely on the dead timber of pine trees, and 

 seems less inclined to attack timber under cover than when 

 exposed to the sun and air. Like our own ants, it has an 

 acid taste, owing to its containing formic acid. The nests of 

 this species of ant are composed of dry leaves, chiefly those 

 of the pines, heaped together to about 15 inches in height, 

 and in the centre is contained the nursery of young ones. 



The valley narrows rapidly after passing the Tete Noir; 

 and its whole breadth is covered with a gloomy pine forest, 

 through which the path, scarcely scalable by mules, winds, 

 sometimes ascending, sometimes with a steep descent, now 

 high above the I'oaring torrent, by this time swelled and 

 lashed into wave and spray ; now close to its rolling waters. 

 At one point the scene was peculiarly impressive. The path 

 led over an enormous mass of granite covered all over with 

 lichens : on one side, the pines, set thick and dark, ap- 

 peared to grow out from between the huge rounded granite 

 that sloped rapidly upwards, until their termination was lost 

 in the forestry; every inch of space between the trees was 

 covered, to the depth of some inches, with the most luxuriant 

 coaling the eye could repose upon of the lichens ventosus 

 and atroflavus, &c., filling up the yawning crevices between 

 the granite boulders, and making the whole a nodular, 

 verdant, velvety surface. At the other side, the rock over- 



