The culture of song insects, the micro of a worm, the simplicity of a tool, the folklore and cultural meaning contained in it are inexhaustible. Insect calls are not produced by the vibration of the mouth through the vocal cords. Instead, it is made through the vibration of an organ in the body or the friction between organs. Crickets, oil gourds and grasshoppers are known as the three major songbirds in China. Among the three major songbirds, the best, most exciting, and most cultural charm are crickets.
The ancients played crickets and paid attention to three realms. The first state is called "paying attention to things." The most typical representative of this is the Southern Song Dynasty Prime Minister Jia Xiangdao, who actually misled the country because of playing with insects; the second realm is called "gambling with entertainment", using fighting crickets as a means of gambling; the third realm is called "allegorical to things", which is the highest realm, mostly by literati and scholars.
The first of the three insects is crickets
Crickets are also known as weaving, Beijing commonly known as crickets. That is, it is loud and aggressive. Breeders are the most numerous, and the market is the largest, so it dominates the boiling head. Known as the "first worm in the world", when we were young, we all watched Jigong's cartoons, and how popular the douqi were at that time could be seen.
The history of raising crickets has lasted for a thousand years, and it is recorded in the "Relics of Kaiyuan Tianbao": "Every autumn, the concubines in the palace use small gold cages to store crickets, close them in cages, place them on the pillow letter, listen to their sounds at night, and the homes of the common people are also effective." Probably the meaning is that every autumn, the concubines in the palace take small gold cages and put them on the pillow, and listen to it at night, and the people of the city also learn to do this.
Crickets are generally not called crickets in winter as song insects, but called "white worms", and the song does not change much, but has the characteristics of grandeur and rigidity, and is quite like a grasshopper in a continuous situation.
Qi Baishi Cricket Diagram
Wang Xuetao Autumn Fun Bean Pod Cricket
The second of the three major songbirds is the oil gourd
Oil gourd is one of the most common winter songbirds, also known as "black worms". The oil gourd is a larger type of cricket, with a wild oil gourd body length of about two and a half centimeters; while the artificially incubated one is larger, up to three centimeters long. The body color is black, brown, shiny, and the abdomen is yellowish brown.
The sound of the oil gourd and the cricket is different, the sound is elegant and varied, the jargon is called "You'er", the more the call "You'er", the more powerful, the more the play oil gourd also pays attention to the "inverted call", because the oil gourd rests during the day, calls at night, and the call is extremely loud, so it is necessary to use a special process "call", let him call during the day, rest at night.
The third is the grasshopper
Since the Qing Dynasty, officials and eunuchs inside and outside the imperial palace have loved to listen to the crisp call of grasshoppers, especially in winter. During the snow season, they gather together and place their respective grasshoppers in a warm room, enjoying the snow while enjoying the pleasant song of the grasshoppers.
Grasshoppers can be divided into four types: black grasshopper, green grasshopper, mountain grasshopper and grass white grasshopper. The black grasshopper is the most popular type of northern songworm player, also known as the "tin grasshopper". The main characteristics are first, the color weight, the second is the body size, and the third is the sound of the song insects. Connoisseurs believe that authentic tin grasshoppers are a specialty of Beijing's Xishan.