You Won’t Believe What He Does to Get My Attention
My favorite season is upon us. Do you know how I know? It started in my dining room and then it happened in my kitchen. I had to be careful where I stepped. He was quiet in the day for the most part, but in the late afternoon, he made this loud chirping sound. I know what is coming. This evokes the transition of one season into the next. The hot days of August are coming to an end. Crisp coolness fills the air and the cricket in my kitchen lets me know this.
He keeps me company while I have my afternoon tea. He is being very covert these days hiding in a cupboard next to a bottle of Madeira. He stops in his tracks when he feels me near. After all, he has very good hearing. Other times, he is very loud.
I remember my Science teacher in ninth grade telling our class about the cricket and how he followed the sound to find him in his natural habitat. How can something so small be so loud? He is trying to get my attention — even in the daytime! He rubs his wings together to make that chirping sound. This is to attract a female. It is working.
The greatest diversity of crickets live in the Tropics. Eighty-eight species were heard chirping in the region of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. There may have been more as some species are mute. They are not found in latitudes 55 degrees or higher. They are good at converting their food into body mass making them a source of nutrition in some cultures. They are deep-fried and sold as snacks in Southeast Asia. One of my friends would treat her son to chocolate covered crickets when they visited Philadelphia where they were featured in a museum gift shop.
One can almost set the temperature by a cricket. On average, he will chirp 62 times per minute at 55 degrees Fahrenheit. Most species chirp more at a higher temperature. According to “Dolbear’s Law”, which is the rate of chirping associated with temperature, the Snowy Tree Cricket, common in the United States, chirps so many times in fourteen seconds. Add forty to this number, and you have the temperature in Fahrenheit.
Crickets are also kept as pets in countries from China to Europe. They are seen as omens for various events in Brazilian culture.
Crickets often appear as characters in literature such as in Pinocchio and in Charles Dickens’s “The Cricket of the Hearth” written in 1845 and George Selden’s “The Cricket in Times Square” (1960). They are also celebrated in poems written by William Wadsworth, John Keats and Du Fu.
My little friend is quiet as of late. I am missing him. Now, I enjoy the sound of the rustle of the maple leaves in the trees that are starting to change color. I hear the windchimes on the front porch. Welcome Fall………..