Harvest feast

Harvest mice feasting on wheat grains. Photograph by Stephen Datton/Photo Researchers, Inc. Reproduced by permission. 

The dyestuff, which is also called scarlet or carmine, may be obtained from the dried female kermes scale-insects (various species, e.g. Kermes ver-milio and Kermococcus ilicis L.) by extraction with ethanol (Fig. 2.19). Ker-mesic acid serves as an ant repellent to these insects living on Kermes oaks Quercus coccifera) in the Mediterranean. [50] The Polish cochineal (Por-phyrophora polonica L.), which lives on the roots of a member of the carnation family (Perennial knawel, Scleranthusperennis), was first mentioned in 812 in Charlemagne s Capitulare. It was also known as Saint John s blood , because harvesting began by tradition on the feast-day of St John the Baptist (June 24) (Fig. 2.20). 

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