which Alexandria was built, but not to the right of suffrage till long after the second Punic war. FORMICA, in entomology, a genus of insects of the hymenoptera order, which have four feelers, with cylindrical articulations placed at the tip of the lip, which is cylindrical and membranaceous: antennæ filiform, a small erect scale between the thorax and the abdomen; males and females with wings; neuters wingless. See ENTOMO

LOGY.

La Marck explains the genus somewhat differently, and by the adoption of his character, several of the Linnæan and Fabrician formica are excluded. This writer lays down the essential character as follows: antennæ filiform and broken, the first joint very long; feelers unequal, the anterior pair longer; mandibles strong; tongue short, concave and truncated. To this is added, as a secondary character, that the abdomen is attached to the corselet by a pedicle, bearing a small scale, or vertical knob; and that of each species there are three kinds, males, females, and neuters, which latter are without wings. The larva destitute of feet.

The species, according to Fabricius, are above ninety. See ANT: where we have described at some length the habits of this well-known insect. We shall, however, here give a short account from Mr. Huber of the masonry and buildings of the brown ants :-Their nests are formed of parallel or concentric stories, each four or five lines in height; the partitions being about half a line in thickness, and built of such fine materials that the interior appears perfectly smooth. On examining each of these stories, we discover chambers of different sizes, having long galleries of communication. The ceilings of the larger species are supported by small pillars, sometimes by slender walls, and in other cases by arches. Some cells have but a single entrance; others have passages, which open from the story underneath. In other parts, still larger central spaces, or halls, are met with, in which a great number of passages terminate, like the streets and avenues to a market-place. The whole nest often contains twenty of these stories above the level of the ground, and at least as many below it. The use of this numerous series of rooms will appear in the sequel. The surface of the nest is covered with a thicker wall, and has several doors, admitting, in the day-time, free ingress and egress. This species of ant is unable to bear much heat. During the day, therefore, and particularly when the sun shines, their doors are closed; and they either keep at home, or venture out only through the subterraneous passages. When the dew has given freshness to the nest, and softened the earthy materials on its surface, they begin to make their appearance above ground. On the first shower of rain that occurs, the whole swarm are apprised of it, and immediately resume their architectural labors. While some are engaged in moving the earth below, others are employed in building an additional story on the top; the masons making use of the materials furnished by the miners. The plan of the cells and partitions is first traced in relief on the walls, which are seen gradually to rise, leaving empty spaces between them. The beginnings

of pillars indicate the situation of the future halls; and the rising partitions show the form of the intended passages. Upon the plan thus traced, they continue building, till they have arrived at a sufficient elevation. Masses of moistened earth are then applied at right angles to the tops of the walls, on each side, and continued in a horizontal direction till they meet in the middle. The ceilings of the larger chambers are completed in the same manner; the workers beginning from the angle of the walls, and from the tops of the pillars which have been raised in the centre. The largest of these chambers, which might be compared to the town-hall, and is frequently more than two inches in diameter, is completed with apparently as much ease as the rest. This busy crowd of masons arriving in every direction, laden with materials for the building, hastening to avail themselves of the rain to carry on their work, and yet observing the most perfect order in their operations, must present the most interesting and amusing spectacle. They raise a single story in about seven or eight hours, forming a general roof as a covering to the whole; and they go on, adding other stories, so long as the rain affords them facility of moulding the materials.

FORMIC ACID. It has long been known that ants contain a strong acid which they occasionally emit; and which may be obtained from the ants, either by simple distillation, or by infusion of them in boiling water, and subsequent distillation of as much of the water as can be brought over without burning the residue. After this it may be purified by repeated rectifications, or by boiling to separate the impurities; or after rectification it may be concentrated by frost. The existence of this acid was first made known by Mr. Ray, in a correspondence with Dr. Hulse. The doctor informed him that these insects, when irritated, give out a clear liquid, which tinges blue flowers red; a fact which had been observed by others. Hence it was found to be an acid, which was obtained by bruising the insects, by distilling them, and by infusing them in water. The French chemists obtained the acid by bruising ants, and macerating them in alcohol. When the alcohol was distilled over, an acid liquor remained, which saturated with lime, mixed with sulphuric acid, and distilled, yielded a liquid that possessed all the properties of acetic acid This acid has been thought by some chemists, and especially by Margraaf, to be acetic acid, or at least to have a great analogy to vinegar; and by others to be a mixture of acetic and malic acid. A minute examination of it, however, sufficiently proves, that it differs very essentially from both, whether separate or in conjunction, quite as much, indeed, as these differ from each other; it differs in its specific gravity, its effects with alkalies, its metallic salts, and its affinities.

Thouvenel, on the contrary, contended, that it is very closely related to the phosphoric, or, as he calls it, the microcosmic; but he has not stated in what the relation or analogy consists. Lister affirmed that he had extracted a similar acid from wasps and bees; but Arvidson and Oehrn failed in making the attempt after him, nor has any one been able to succeed since.

This acid has a very sour taste, and continues liquid even at very low temperatures. Its specific gravity is 1'1168 at 68°, which is much denser than acetic acid ever is. Berzelius finds, that the formiate of lead consists of 4.696 acid, and 14 oxide of lead; and that the ultimate constituents of the dry acid are hydrogen 2.84 + carbon 32:40 + oxygen 64·76=100.

M. Dobereiner has recently succeeded (see Gilbert's Annales, xi. 107) in forming this acid artificially. When a mixture of tartaric acid, or of cream of tartar, black oxide of manganese and water is heated, a tumultuous action ensues, carbonic acid is evolved, and a liquid acid distils over, which, on superficial examination, was mistaken for acetic acid, but which now proves to be formic acid. This acid, mixed with concentrated sulphuric acid, is at common temperatures converted into water and carbonic oxide; nitrate of silver or of mercury converts it, when gently heated, into carbonic acid, the oxides being at the same time reduced to the metallic state. With barytes, oxide of lead, and oxide of copper, it produces compounds having all the properties of the genuine formiates of these metals. If a portion of sulphuric acid be employed in the above process, the tartaric acid is resolved entirely into carbonic acid, water, and formic acid; and the product of the latter is much increased. The best proportions are, two parts tartaric acid, five peroxide of manganese, and five sulphuric acid diluted with about twice its weight of

water.

FORMICA-LEO, the ant-lion, in zoology, an insect so called from its devouring great numbers of ants. It is the caterpillar worm of a fly much resembling the libellula or dragon-flies. It has, in its general figure, somewhat of the appearance of the wood-louse, so that some have mistaken it at first sight for that animal. It is of a dirty grayish color, marked with black spots; and these also appear composed of many points when viewed with a microscope. Its body is composed of several rings, and has thence a wrinkled look. It has six legs; four are joined to the breast, and the other two to a longer part, which may be taken for its neck. Its head is small and flat, and it has two remarkable horns: these are about a sixth part of an inch long, and as thick as a hair: they are hard, hollow, and hooked at the end like the claws of a cat. At the origin of each of these horns, it has a clear and bright black eye, which sees very distinctly, and gives the creature notice to escape on sight of the smallest object. This creature is not able to hunt after its prey, nor to destroy large insects; it can only draw into its snares such as come near its habitation, and of these very few are such as he can manage: all the winged kind are able to escape by flight; and the beetle kinds, and others that have hard shells upon their bodies, are of no use, as his horns cannot pierce them. The smallness of the ant, and the want of wings in the neuters, make them the destined prey of this devourer. The manner in which he catches his prey is as follows:-He usually encamps under an old wall, that he may be sheltered from the injuries of the weather; and he always chooses a place where the soil is com

posed of a fine dry sand. In this he makes a pit of the shape of a funnel, or an inverted hollow cone. If he intends the pit to be but small, he thrusts down his hinder part into the sand, and by degrees plunges himself backwards into it; and, when he has got into a certain depth, he tosses out the loose sand which has run down with his head, artfully throwing it off beyond the edges of his pit. Thus he lies at the bottom of a small hollow, which is widest at the top, and comes sloping down to his body. But if he is to make a larger pit, more pains are required to bring it to perfection. He first traces, in the surface of the sand, a large circle, which is the erected base or mouth of the pit he is to make in form of an inverted cone. He then buries himself in the sand near the edge of this circle, and carefully throwing up the sand above him, with his head, tossing it out beyond the circumference of the circle. Thus he continues his work, running down backwards in a spiral line all the way, and carefully throws off the sand from above him, till he is come to the place of his rest, which is the point or reverted apex of the hollow cone he has formed by his passage. The length of his neck, and the flatness of his head, give him a power of using the whole as a spade, and throwing off the sand with great ease; and his strength in this part is so great, that he is able to throw off a quantity of it to six inches distance. This is a power he exerts oftener, however, in throwing away the remains of the animals he has fed upon, that his den may not become frightful to others of the same species, by seeing their fellows' carcases about it. When this insect forms its pit in a bed of pure sand, it is made and repaired with great ease but where it meets with other substances among the sand, the labor becomes more embarrassing. If, for instance, when the creature has half formed its pit, it comes to a stone of some moderate size, it does not desert the work for this, but goes on, intending to remove that impediment at last. When the pit is finished, the creature crawls backward up the side of the place where the stone is, and, getting its back under it, takes great pains and time to get it on a true poise, and then begins to crawl backwards with it up the edge to the top of the pit, to get it out of the way. It is a very common thing to see a formica-leo in this manner laboring at a stone four times as big as its own body; and as it can only move backward, and the poise is hard to keep, especially up a slope of such crumbly matter as sand, which moulders away from under its feet, and necessarily alters the position of its body, the stone very frequently falls down when near the verge, and rolls to the bottom. In this case the animal attacks it again in the same way, and often is not discouraged by five or six miscarriages of this kind; but attempts again, and at length gets it over the verge of the place. When it has done this, it does not leave it there, lest it should roll in again; but always pushes it farther on, till it has removed it to a necessary distance from the edge of the pit. When he has finished his pit, he buries himself at the bottom of it among the sand, leaving no part above ground but the tips of his two horns, which he expands to the two sides of his pit. In

this condition he lies and waits for his prey. When an ant, or any other insect chances to walk over the edges of his pit, its steps throw down a little of the sand, which naturally running down to the bottom of the pit, gives the enemy notice of his prey; he then tosses up the sand which covers his head, to bury the ant, and bring him down with its returning force to the bottom; and as one such attempt cannot be sufficient to prevent the ant's escape, he throws more and more sand upon him, till he by degrees brings him down. All the endeavours of the ant to escape, when once it is within the verge of the pit, are in vain; for as it attempts to climb, the sand runs away from under its feet, it sinks the lower for every attempt. This motion of the sand also informs the enemy where it is, and directs him to throw up more sand in the right place; which it does, till the poor ant falls to the bottom between its horns. It then plunges the points deep into the ant's body; and, having sucked all the juice out of the prey, it throws out the empty skin as far from the hole as it can. This done, it mounts up the edges of its pit, and, if it has suffered any injury, repairs it with great care, and immediately buries itself again in the centre to wait for another meal. The horns of this creature are its only organs for receiving nourishment; it never brings any animal which it has seized near to its head, but always holds it at the tip of the horns. They therefore plainly serve as syringes, to draw into its stomach the juices of the bodies of the insects it feeds upon: neither is there any mouth or trunk, or any other organ to be discovered about its head, which could answer the purpose of eating; the head seeming only intended for throwing away the sand in forming the pit. The horns of this animal being so necessary to its life, nature has provided for the restoring them in case of accidents; and, if cut off, they are found to grow again.

When the formica-leo has lived a proper time in this state, it leaves its pit, and is only seen drawing lines and traces on the surface of the sand. After this it buries itself under the surface; and there encloses itself in a fine web, in which it is to pass its transformation into the winged state. This case is made of a sort of silk which the creature spins in the manner of the spider, and of a quantity of the grains of sand cemented together by a glutinous humor which flows from its pores. This case, however, would be too harsh and coarse for the body of the creature, and therefore it serves only for the outer covering to defend it from injuries; the creature spinning one of fine silk, of a beautiful pearl color within it, which covers its whole body. When the creature has lain some time in this manner, it throws off its outer skin, with the eyes, horns, and every other part necessary to its life before, and becomes an oblong nymph, in which a careful eye may trace the form of the fly into which it is to be transformed. There may be seen, through its transparent covering, new eyes, new horns, wings, and all the other parts of the animal in its perfect state. This nymph makes its way about half out of the shell, and remains in this condition, but without far

ther life or motion, till the perfect fly makes its way out at a slit in the back. In this last state it much resembles the libellulæ or dragon-flies, common about our waters. The male couples with the female in this state only; and M. Poupart, to whom the world is indebted for this curious description, is of opinion that the females lay only one egg; but this is very different from the course of nature in the other animals of the same class.

FORMICHE, a cluster of small fishing islands, between the coast of Florence and Corsica. They are in lat. 42° 40′ N., and long. 10° 25′ E. FORMICATION, n. s. From Lat. formica, an ant. A sensation like that produced by the creeping or biting of ants.

One of the signs of this disorder (spasmus) is a sense of formication. Hill's Medical Dictionary. FORMIDABLE, adj. Fr. formidable; Lat. FOR MIDABLENESS, n. s. formidabilis, à formiFORMIDABLY, adv. Sdo, to fear. Terrible; dreadful; tremendous; to be feared: the last is its most distinguishing meaning. It is applied to that which is apt to excite fear. The formidable acts neither suddenly nor violently: thus it differs from dreadful, which is usually considered as its synonyme; for the dreadful may act violently, but not suddenly: thus the appearance of an army may be formidable; that of a field of battle is dreadful.

Behold! e'en to remoter shores,
A conquering navy proudly spread;
The British cannon formidably roars.

Dryden

They seemed to fear the formidable sight, And rolled their billows on, to speed his flight. Id.

I swell my preface into a volume, and make it for midable, when you see so many pages behind.

Dryden's Eneid, Dedication. of their danger, than by a blind embracing it, to perish. They rather chuse to be shewed the formidableness Decay of Piety.

But let fancy muster up all the discouraging circumstances, and set them in the most formidable light, to bar your way to a supposed duty.

Mason.

France continued not only powerful, but formidable, to the hour of the ruin of the monarchy. Burke. ARNOLD.-Rival!

CESAR.-I could be one right formidable.

Byron. Deformed Transformed. FORMOSA, or Taiwan, an island in the Pacific Ocean, about 100 miles east of Canton in China, separated from the province of Fokien by a strait about sixty miles broad. Its most productive portion is subject to the Chinese; who, however, knew not of its existence until 1430. It is about eighty leagues long, and twenty-five broad. A long chain of mountains, which runs from north to south, divides it into two parts, the east and west. The Dutch formed an establishment in the west part in 1634, and built the fort of Zealand, which secured to them the principal port of the island; but they were driven thence in 1659 or 1661, by a celebrated Chinese pirate, who made himself master of all the western part, which afterwards submitted in 1682 to the authority of the emperor Kang-He. This western part of Formosa is divided into three distinct governments, all subordinate to the

FORNICATION (Lat. fornicatio), from the fornices in Rome, where lewd women prostituted themselves for money. Formerly court-leets had power to enquire of and punish fornication and adultery; in which courts the king had a fine assessed on the offenders, as appears by the book of Domesday. In 1650 not only incest and wilful adultery were made capital crimes, but also the repeated act of keeping a brothel, or committing fornication, was (upon a second conviction) made felony, without benefit of clergy. But at the Restoration it was not thought proper to renew this law: and these offences have been ever since left to the feeble coercion of a spiritual court. In the Scriptures, as Dr. Paley observes, fornication is absolutely and peremptorily condemned. Out of the heart proceedeth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, &c., these are the things which defile a man.' These are Christ's own words; and one word from him upon the subject is final. The apostles are more full upon this topic. One well-known passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews may suffice; because, admitting the authority by which the apostles wrote, it is decisive. 'Marriage and the bed undefiled is honorable amongst all men, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge;' which was a great deal to say, at a time when it was not agreed even amongst philosophers that fornication was a crime.' The Scriptures gave no sanction,' adds this justly esteemed moralist, 'to those austerities which have been imposed upon the world under the name of Christ's religion, as the celibacy of the clergy, the praise of perpetual virginity, the prohibitio concubitûs cum gravida uxore; but with a just knowledge of, and regard to the condition and interest of the human species, have provided in the marriage of one man with one woman an adequate gratification for the propensities of their nature, and have restrained them to that gratification. The avowed toleration, and in some countries the licensing, taking, and regulating of public brothels, has appeared to the people an authorising of fornication, and has contributed, with other causes, so far to vitiate the public opinion, that there is no practice of which the immorality is so little thought of, or acknowledged, although there are few in which it can more plainly be made out. The legislators who have patronised receptacles of prostitution, ought to have foreseen this effect, as well as considered, that whatever facilitates fornication, diminishes marriages. And as to the usual apology for this relaxed discipline, the danger of greater enormities, if access to prostitutes were too strictly watched and prohibited; it will be time enough to look to that, after the laws and the magistrates have done their utmost. The greatest vigilance of both will do no more than oppose some bounds, and some difficulties to this intercourse. And, after all, these pretended fears are without foundation in experience. The men are in all respects the most virtuous in countries where the women are most chaste. If fornication be criminal, all those incentives which lead to it are accessary to the crime; as lascivious conversation, whether expressed in obscene, or disguised under modest phrases; also wanton songs, pictures, books

the writing, publishing, and circulation of which whether out of frolic, or for some pitiful profit, are productive of so extensive a mischief from so mean a temptation, that few crimes within the reach of private wickedness have more to answer for, or less to plead in their excuse. Indecent conversation and by parity of reason all the rest, are forbidden by St. Paul, Eph. iv. 29. 'Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth;' and again, Col. iii. 8. Put filthy communications out of your mouth.' The invitation, or voluntary admission of impure thoughts, or the suffering them to get possession of the imagination, falls within the same description, and is condemned by Christ, Matt. v. 28. Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.' Christ, by thus enjoining a regulation of the thought, strikes at the root of the evil.'-Moral Philosophy, vol. 1.

FORRES, a royal borough of Scotland, in the parish of the same name, which joins with Inverness, Fortrose, and Nairn, in electing a representative in parliament. It is a small well-built town, pleasantly situated on an eminence near the Findhorn, about a mile from Findhorn Bay, and commands an extensive prospect. Ancient records speak of Forres as a town of considerable note, so early as the thirteenth century. It is governed by a provost, two bailies, and dean of guild, annually elected; and contains 2400 inhabitants. It has a grammar-school of great repute, besides several private schools. About 300 barrels of salmon are annually exported. Linen yarn is the chief manufacture. Forres lies ten miles west of Elgin, and eight east of Nairn. About a mile from Forres, on the left hand side of the road, is a remarkable obelisk of the Gothic kind, and supposed to have been erected in memory of the treaty between Malcolm II. and Canute the Great, in 1008. Others have imagined that it was erected in memory of the assassination of king Duff; and this opinion is conceived to be strengthened by the discovery of eight human skeletons laid along a trench, in a little green mount close by the obelisk, supposed to be the assassins of the king. On the declivity of Cluny's Hill, looking towards Sweno's stone, there are obvious remains of extensive entrenchments. It is thus described by Mr. Cordiner, in a letter to Pennant:-'In the first division, underneath the Gothic ornaments at the top, are nine horses with their riders, marching forth in order: in the next is a line of warriors on foot, brandishing their weapons, and appear to be shouting for the battle. The import of the attitudes in the third division is very dubious, their expression indefinite. The figures which form a square in the middle of the column are pretty complex, but distinct; four serjeants with their halberts, guard a company, under which are placed several human heads, which have belonged to the dead bodies piled up at the left of the division: one appears in the character of executioner, severing the head from another body; behind him are three trumpeters sounding their trumpets, and before him two pairs of combatants, fighting with sword and target. A troop of horse next appears put to flight by infantry,