FORMATION

A geological term, applied to a group of deposits or strata apparently referable to a common origin or period. FORMED ON, In Law, a writ in the nature of a writ of right, which lies for him who has right to lands or tenements by virtue of an entail. {See Fee Tail.) Formed on is in the descender, the remainder, or the reverter, according to the estate of the party who sues. FORMl' CA. (Lat. fl»an<.) A Linnaean genus of insects, now the ty-pe of a very numerous and extensively distributed family {Formicidce), belonging to the order Hymenoptera, and to that section which is negatively characterized by not being armed with a sting, and by not po e ing any instrument for piercing the bodies of animals or the substance of plants for the purpose of ovi^josition. The procreative economy of these well-known and most interesting insects is that to which all their wonderful habits and peculiarities are e entially related; and amongst those genera which the wisdom of Providence has ordained should form a ociations for the purpose of multiplying, preserving, and providing for their kind, the ants stand in a prominent and interesting rank, whether viewed as presenting some of the higher traits of animal instinct, or as a living evidence of an all-wise Intelligence, whose mute but incontrovertible orders are thus so implicitly and cheerfully obeyetl. In every species of insect the parents are relieved from the charge of providing for their offspring: they neither attend to their wants, nor defend them from harm in their immature and helple state; and this, not from any deficiency of natural attachment, but from the brief period of their existence after having attained the state of maturity adapted for procreation; for at the close of this season the male generally dies before the eggs which [s. 477]