Crickets are chirping in the early morning darkness. Most people have experienced the sound of crickets chirping on a warm summer evening. We hear them sing primarily at night.
Cricket chirping slows and diminishes when the temperature falls below room temperature - 23 C or 74 F degrees. I seem to think of crickets chirping more in the Fall. I guess that's because they come into the house to escape the cold weather so they are chirping right nearby.
Crickets are generally considered a pleasant insect. They feature as major characters in novels and children's books. Charles Dickens's 1845 novella The Cricket on the Hearth, divided into sections called "Chirps", tells the story of a cricket which chirps on the hearth and acts as a guardian angel to a family.
Carlo Collodi's 1883 children's book "Le avventure di Pinocchio" (The Adventures of Pinocchio) featured "Il Grillo Parlante" (The Talking Cricket) as one of its characters. This we know because of the Walt Disney animated movie Pinocchio (1940), where Jiminy Cricket becomes the title character's conscience. In Mulan (1998), Cri-kee is carried in a cage as a symbol of luck, in the Asian manner.
And a particular age group remembers The Crickets as the name of Buddy Holly's rock and roll band; Holly's home town baseball team in the 1990s was called the Lubbock Crickets.
While no cricket jokes showed up, here's a grasshopper one:
The devout cowboy lost his favorite Bible while he was mending fences out on the range. Three weeks later, a group of grasshoppers walked up to him carrying the Bible on their backs. The cowboy couldn't believe his eyes. He took the precious book off the grasshoppers backs, raised his eyes heavenward and exclaimed, "It's a miracle!" "Not really," said the grasshoppers. "Your name is written inside the cover."
Another abstract today, pouring itself into a picture.
There is a symphony outside this morning. The loud bass of the highway traffic and the soprano of a choir of crickets. While it may be a soprano song, it is the males who chirp in order to attract a mate. Male crickets make their chirping noise by rubbing their wings together - and their ears are located on the knees of their front legs.
In some Asian countries crickets are believed to bring good luck and they are kept in tiny cages as house pets. In Brazil, their singing is believed to be a sign of impending rain. In other cultures, crickets found in a house are believed to be there to announce a death.
We can expect to hear the crickets until the cold weather, almost a month of the cricket symphony at our doorsteps. Here are a few jokes on the insect theme.
Q: What is a bugs favorite sport? A: Cricket.
Q: How do bees brush their hair? A: With a honey comb!
Q: "Waiter, what's this fly doing in my soup?" A: "I think it's doing the backstroke!"
Q: How do bees get to school? A: On the school buzz!
Q: Did you hear about the two bed bugs who met in the mattress? A: They got married in the spring
Q: How do fireflies start a race? A: Ready, Set, Glow!
Q: Where do most ants live? A: In Antlantic City!
Q: When do spiders go on their honeymoon? A: After their 'webbing' day!
Q: How do fleas travel? A: They itch-hike!
Q: What do you call a bug that can't have too much sugar? A: A diabeetle
Q: Why couldn't the butterfly go to the dance? A: Because it was a moth ball!
Q: What did one flea say to another? A: "Should we walk or take the dog?"
