[L. formīca ant.]
1. Ent. The typical genus of the family Formicidæ; the ant.
1865. Livingstone, Zambesi, ix. 190. We could not [sleep] because of the attacks by the fighting battalions of a small species of formica, not more than one-sixteenth of an inch in length.
1878. Bell, Gegenbaur’s Comp. Anat., 272. Many Hymenoptera (Formica, Cynips) also possess it.
2. A kind of abscess, ulcer, or excrescence, occurring esp. in a hawk’s bill or a dog’s ears.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 213–4. Pustule þat comeþ of humours corrupt as ignis persicus & miliaris, & fformica schal be purgid wiþ medicyns þat purgiþ colre & malancolie.
1543. Traheron, trans. Vigo’s Chirurg., II. vi. 20 b. Formica is a lytle pustle, or many pustles that come upon the skynne…. The thyrde [sygne] is pryckynge, and it is a sodayn bytyng as it were of an ante wherof it hath hys name.
1614. Markham, Cheap Husb. (1623), 161. The Formicas in Hawkes is a hard horne growing vpon the beake of a Hawke, ingendered by a poysonous and cankerous worm.
1674. N. Cox, Gentl. Recreat., II. (1677), 248. Of the Formica. This is a Distemper which commonly seizeth on the Horn of Hawks Beaks, which will eat the Beak away: and this is occasioned by a Worm, as most men are of opinion.
1846. J. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4), I. 225. Formica or Scab in the Ears [of a dog].—A little mercurial ointment rubbed upon the affected parts every two or three days, will very soon effect a cure.
