Since the Renaissance, composers have been writing songs about crickets. In one Italian frottola, des Pres wrote of a cricket, ‘When it’s hot out, He sings for the love of it.”
Crickets don’t really sing; they chirp and it’s not a vocalization. The sound in made because a male cricket as a very thick vein on each wing. Each vein has between 50 and 300 microscopic teeth which sort of resemble the edge of zipper. When the cricket pulls these toothed veins across his wings, it makes a sound. The cricket also flaps his wings to produce pulses.
Clearly, male crickets chirp, not “for the love of it”, but rather to attract a female of the same species, and researchers speculate that they also chirp to show aggression to other males or to warn of danger. But as the song lyrics point out , a cricket song changes when “it’s hot out.”
And it does! As the temperatures rise, the pitch gets higher and the tempo increases.
When it is cool, crickets do not have much energy. As the temperature rises, chemical reactions take place and the cricket has more energy enabling his muscles warm and loosen up.
I am somewhat amused when the word “crickets” is used when someone asks a question and gets no response.
Apparently, this term comes from a frequently used cinematic metaphor signaling complete silence. "So quiet….all you can hear is the crickets."
I suppose that in a film that works; out in nature, crickets are pretty noisy.
