Cheerful songsters-crickets

Among the humbler creatures of the earth are the insects. Yet they contribute to the pleasures of man’s world, too. The butterflies with their lovely colors, the honeybee’s with their sweet treats of honey, the fireflies with their glittering lights, the dragonflies with their voracious appetites, and of course, the crickets, with their cheerful chirping.

The gay song of the cricket has been heralded in the literature and folklore of the people throughout time. It’s cheerful little tune has always been a symbol of peace and comfort. In England it is a sign of good luck to have a cricket chirping on the hearth, and to kill one is bad luck.

In China and Japan crickets are as musical pets. They are fed lettuce, cucumber, bits of fish, and are given drops of honey, now and then, as tonic. And one special species, known as the “spinning damsel,” is fed nothing but flowers and melons during certain weeks of the year, because it is thought to improve his song.

Crickets can be found virtually everywhere--high in the mountains, among swamps, on islands, in the tropics, and even in the Northern woods. It was the crickets chirping, millions of years ago, that came long before the frog’s croak, the bird’s first song, or even the howl of the first wolf. And as it happens so often in nature, only the adult males sing, by scraping wing against wing as many as 5,000 times a second, to produce their musical noise.

To a cricket, everything is edible. It is an omnivorous creature, and will dine on dead moles, flowers vegetables, and just about anything eatable. And in the late days of summer especially, the chorus of the male cricket is at its height, for it’s mating time! Meanwhile, the females are soon busy laying their eggs, injecting them just below the surface of the ground with their needle-sharp tails. Then, they face the oncoming winter, and their demise, still doing what crickets do best, singing their cheerful song, up to the very end.