The Cricket in Times Square
George Selden (1929-1989) was the author of A Cricket in Times Square, winner of the 1961 Newbery Honor and a timeless children's classic. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Selden received his B.A. from Yale, where he was a member of the Elizabethan Club and contributed to the literary magazine. He spent three summer sessions at Columbia University and, after college, studied for a year in Rome on a Fulbright Scholarship. People often asked Selden how he got the idea for The Cricket in Times Square. "One night I was coming home on the subway, and I did hear a cricket chirp in the Times Square subway station. The story formed in my mind within minutes. An author is very thankful for minutes like those, although they happen all too infrequently." The popular Cricket series grew to seven titles, including Tucker's Countryside and The Old Meadow. In 1973, The Cricket in Times Square was made into an animated film. Selden wrote more than fifteen books, as well as two plays.
Why Is a Cricket a Sign of Good Luck?
Crickets have played a strong role throughout Chinese, Japanese and Native American cultures as a symbol of good fortune, vitality and prosperity. As far back as 500 B.C., people revered the song of the cricket and often kept crickets in cages to enjoy that song on a regular basis. In addition, crickets are valued as watch dogs and as natural clocks for timing a good harvest.
- Crickets in Chinese History
Throughout Chinese history, crickets have symbolized wisdom and prosperity to the extent that a 2,000-year period of history is known as the Cricket Culture. Within this time frame, three specific eras celebrated various aspects of the cricket. In the first era, which lasted from 500 B.C. to 618 A.D., the singing of crickets was revered. During the Tang Dynasty, from 618 to 906 A.D., people began to keep crickets in cages in order to appreciate the sounds. Between 960 and 1278 A.D., cricket fighting became a popular pastime. Ancient Chinese literature is filled with songs and sayings about crickets and other insects.
- Association with Material Prosperity
Crickets lay hundreds of eggs. Their fertility coincides with the traditional Chinese belief that having many children is a symbol of vitality and a requirement for financial success. In ancient times, farmers began preparing fields for spring harvest only after hearing the song of a cricket.
- Cricket Singing
From nobleman and famous artists to peasant farmers and Buddhist monks, people throughout history have kept caged crickets to enjoy their song. Crickets chirp, or sing, by rubbing their wings together. Only the male cricket sings, often to attract a female or to fend off another male cricket. If you count the number of chirps in 15 seconds and add 37, you can estimate the approximate outdoor temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.
- Crickets as Protectors
For generations throughout Chinese and Japanese history, crickets have been considered great protection because they stop singing when anyone or anything approaches. Middle Eastern and European craftsman commonly carved amulets and charms bearing images of crickets to fend off evil spirits. American colonial builders added a copper cricket to the weather vane on Boston’s Fanuel Hall as a symbol of protection.
Derrington, Laura. Sept 29, 2017 Classroom. https://classroom.synonym.com/about-apache-indian-symbols-12081169.html
Cricketometer: If You Listen, Crickets Will Tell You About Weather
These little critters may be extra noisy during this week's heat wave
Paul HuttnerJune 15, 2020 10:26 p.m.
There is a lot of weather lore about animals and weather.
There are groundhogs like Punxatawney Phil. There’s the Wolly Bear. And squirrel nests?
The truth about animal weather lore is there isn’t much science to back up accuracy claims. Punataweney Phil’s forecast accuracy is only about 39 percent in more than 100 years.
But there’s one critter that pretty good track record of giving us some metrics on current weather.
Cue the crickets. If you listen, they’ll tell you about the weather.
Cricket chirps
So, what is a cricket chirp? It’s the sound they make by scarping the rough edges on their wings together. And it features a shiny new science word.
Stridulation.
Scientific American explains.
"How do crickets make their distinctive chirp? They use a process called stridulation, where special body parts are rubbed together to make a noise. Generally, only male crickets do this; there's a special structure on the tops of their wings, called a scraper. When they want to make their sound, they raise their wings to a 45-degree angle and draw the scraper of one wing across wrinkles on the underside of the other wing, called a file. It's somewhat like running your finger along the teeth of a comb."
Audio thermometer
There’s an easy way to tell the temperature by counting cricket chirps. Again, here’s the formula from Scientific American.
Count how many chirps the cricket makes in 14 seconds. How many? Write this number down.
Do this two more times, counting how many chirps the cricket makes in two more 14-second intervals. Write these numbers down. How close were the numbers to one another?
Average the number of chirps in the 14-second intervals.
Add 40 to the average number of chirps in 14 seconds.
The resulting number gives you the approximate air temperature. You can also try counting the number of chirps in 15 seconds and adding 37.
Most sources I follow suggest the crickets are usually accurate to within a couple of degrees.
How crickets react to temperature
So why are crickets so good at estimating temperatures?
It turns out the bodies of these thousands of mini thermometers in your neighborhood are temperature sensitive.
How is a cricket's chirp related to temperature? Crickets, like all living things, have many chemical reactions going on inside their bodies, such as reactions that allow muscles to contract to produce chirping. Crickets, like all insects, are cold-blooded and take on the temperature of their surroundings. This affects how quickly these chemical muscle reactions can occur. Specifically, a formula called the Arrhenius equation describes the activation, or threshold, energy required to make these reactions occur. As the temperature rises, it becomes easier to reach a certain activation energy, thereby allowing chemical reactions, such as the ones that allow a cricket to chirp, to occur more rapidly. Conversely, as the temperature falls, the reaction rates slow, causing the chirping to diminish along with it.
So as our heatwave ramps up this week your neighborhood crickets will be busy. If you listen, they’ll do a pretty good job of telling you what the current temperature is.