Cricket Boxes

If you have seen the movie "The Last Emperor" you may recall a scene or several scenes from this movie where this Noble boy was playing with his cricket. His cricket box was very special, handcrafted from a gourd (kind of vegetable) which was shaped while it was still growing on the tree. A mould with special design encrusted the squash which was growing inside this mould. After it reached the size it was removed from the tree it had to be dried and preserved. The top of the now dried fruit was removed and a lovely cover which was made from a tortoise shell was mounted to the box. These kind of cricket boxes are mostly used for big crickets called guoguo. They are noisy and mostly captured for cricket fighting. A vast amount of money is spent on Cricket fight a popular entertainment for young and old.

There are numerous utensils available for the use if cricket fighting. There are many different types of stimulating brushes which are usually gaily decorated, there are scales to weight the "fighters" before they enter the "arena". A nicely carved clay pot is commonly used as an "arena" and every body sits around this pot and awaits the winner to emerge, as in most fights it always ends with a winner and a looser, the latter mostly ends up dead.

Ticklers to incite the crickets to sing

My cricket box collection however is more an art collection, when I bought the first box there where crickets in it but these were tiny small creatures, golden color and they are quite noisy, the Shanghainese people say they sing, and really they do sing, sometimes very loud indeed. This tiny crickets are called "yellow bell", they have very long antennas and are great fun to watch. You can watch them sing inside this box and if you are patient they are willing to show you how it is done. The back leg is pulled up in a funny way and one wing moves very fast, just like a Lesley inside a Yamaha organ, this is why they sound so "chirpy". They must be fed every day and they like to eat rice, vegetable and fruits. I discovered that if you give them apple to eat they will eat their antennas because the antenna touches the apple when they eat and some apple juice sticks to the antenna, mmhh this tastes sweet so they eat the antenna, simple yah.

Singbox for Insects, plain wood

Where to find this crickets, there are several places in China where you can find them but the most interesting place is in Shanghai where there is a whole street only selling crickets, birds and cricket boxes, utensils for cricket fighting, etc. This street is called "Bird street" and it is within walking distance to the Park Hotel. I will find out the Chinese name of this street but you have to give me a while.

Over the past years I have collected around 30 different type of Cricket boxes, some are very simple, made from bamboo, however there are some very expensive boxes available too, made from Chitan wood and inlaid with ivory. Each box is different in it own way, some of them look alike but the parts which make a box can not be used on another box. If one part of a box is broken it can not be repaired so you have to be very careful when you handle them.

Singbox for Insects, wood with Ivory accents

The Singing Story

On examining the base of the fore wings or wing-covers of the male cricket, it will be noticed that the veins at the base a fewer, thicker, and more irregular than those on the hind or lower wings. On the under side of some of these thick veins will also be seen fine, transverse ridges like those on a file. The wing-covers of the female have uniform, parallel veins, without a trace of ridges. The male cricket produces his chirping sound by raising his wing-covers above his body and then rubbing their bases together, so that the file-like veins of the under surface of the one wing-cover scrape the upper surface of the lower.

Wood Songbox for keeping singing Insects

Only the wings of the male cricket have sound-producing attachments, and the males have them only when their wings are fully developed at the age of maturity. The young cricket has no wings.

Since crickets produce a characteristic sound, it is natural to suppose that both males and females are able to hear it. On the lower part of the fore legs of both sexes is found a little drum-like surface, which serves as the tympanum of an ear. The sound-producing organ and the ear of the katydids, which rank next to the crickets in their singing ability, are some-what similar in structure and location.

The sound mad by crickets is, of course, not a true song, but a mechanical production, as are all of the sounds produced by insects. The object of the chirping or stridulating is somewhat conjectural. It may be a love-song, mating-call, or an expression of some other emotion. The fact that the crickets are able to sing only when they are full-grown and capable of mating would seem to suggest that their chirping is a love-song.

Singbox for Insects, wood with Ivory accents

Most cricket species are "right winged”: their right wing folds over their left. The sounds they produce with their wings are genetic and species-specified. The chirp of each species has a distinctive frequency and pitch all its own. The chirps are so specific that they can be precisely measured. Scientists have found that temperature affects the rate of chirping. When carefully calibrated the chirp rate of some species can be used to measure the temperature.

Adult crickets can chirp continuously.

Insects produce sound in two ways: by moving body parts against each other or by tapping on something. Oak bush crickets drum their feet on leaves to communicate with other crickets. The cicada makes a sound by using tymbals on its abdomen.

The cicada is one of the loudest insects. Its chirping can be heard from a quarter of a mile away. Not all insects make sound. Cave crickets cannot chirp, because they do not have wings.

Wood Songbox for keeping singing Insects

Cricket Raising

Many people rear hundreds of crickets in their homes, and have several rooms stacked with jars which shelter the insects. The rich employ experts to look after theirs. As soon as you enter a house like this, you are greeted by a deafening noise which a Chinese is able to stand for a length of time.

Wood Songbox for keeping singing Insects

During the summer the insects are kept in circular pottery jars made of a common burnt clay and covered with a flat lid, which is sometimes perforated. Many potters made a special business of these cricket houses, and impressed on them a seal with their names; for instance, Chao Tse-yu, who lived in the first part of the nineteenth century and whose productions still enjoy a special reputation. There are old pots said to go back as far as the Ming dynasty (1386 – 1643), and these are highly priced.

The crickets keep cool in these jars, which are often shaped in the form of a gourd, as the heat does not penetrate the thick clay walls. Tiny porcelain dishes decorated in blue and white or small bits of clay contain food and water for the insects, and they are also provided with beds or sleeping boxes of clay Jars of some-what larger size serve for holding the cricket fights.

Wood Songbox for keeping singing Insects

A tickler is used for stirring the crickets to incite them to sing. In Beijing fine hair from a hare or rat whiskers inserted in a red or bone handle is utilized for this purpose; in Shanghai, a fine blade of crab or finger grass. The ticklers are kept in a bamboo or wooden tubes. A special brush serves for cleaning the gourds and jars and a pair of wooden nippers or tongs is used for handling the food and water dishes. The insect is held under a wire screen, while its gourd is being cleaned or washed.

Miniature Carved Songbox

Cricket fighting

Crickets are imbued with the natural instinct to fight. The Chines offer the following explanation for this fact; the crickets live in holes, and each hole is inhabited by a single individual; this manner of living gives rise to frictions and frequent combats, for the insects always prefer their old places of refuge, and when they encounter in them another inmate, they will not cede their rights voluntarily, but will at once start to fight over the housing problem.

Black Wood Songbox

The two rivals will jump at each other’s heads with furious bites, and the combat will usually end in the death of one of the fighters. It frequently happens that the victor devours the body of his adversary, just as primitive man did away with the body of his enemy whom he had slain in mortal strife. When driven by hunger, crickets will feed upon other insects and even devour their own relations. When several are confined in a cage, they do not hesitate to eat one another. War and death is a law of nature.

Miniature Songbox

Well I could go on and on, the above information is actually extracted from a lovely book called “INSECT MUSICIANS & CRICKET CHAMPIONS and was written by Lisa Gail Ryan and is published by China Books & Periodicals, Inc. San Francisco.

It is a fabulous book and explains in great details the cultural history of singing insects.

Moulded gourd

If you have seen the movie "The Last Emperor" you may recall a scene or several scenes from this movie where this Noble boy was playing with his cricket.


Cricket Boxes