As I mowed the grass last week, I noticed tons of crickets scampering to get out of the way.
“Run away! Run away!” I imagined them yelling to one another, Several times, I stopped the mower so the little insects could leap to cover. In the house, if I see a cricket, I catch it and release it outside. It’s bad luck to kill a cricket, you know.
I’ve always had a fondness in my heart for these small cousins of grasshoppers. I suppose it goes back to the movie Pinocchio, released in 1940. Pinocchio, of course, was a wooden boy and needed a conscience and Jiminy Cricket was assigned that role. Jiminy also sang one of the most beautiful movie songs ever recorded – When You Wish Upon a Star.”
So I like crickets.
It seems that crickets are scarce until fall arrives, but it’s amazing how nature works. Crickets are an extraordinary source of protein for birds and other creatures, which must store fats and nutrients to make it through the winter. Crickets are ideal for that purpose and they are terrific for fish bait. No bluegill alive can resist a juicy cricket skewered to a long shank size 8 hook.
Crickets get a bad wrap as being house pests, but they do very little damage. Moths, on the other hand, are a different story, but crickets are relatively harmless. Crickets often slip inside a house in the fall, but they die within a week or two and they don’t lay eggs inside.
Crickets are also quite the musicians. The males (only the males) make friendly chirping sounds by rubbing their wings together – not their legs, but their wings. Even in fall, crickets are most active after dark.
So next time you see a cricket inside, let him go if you can catch him. They are wonderful little creatures and it really is bad luck to kill one.