the North these are captured in the early autumn and 

 in the South just before the rainy season. With allow- 

 ance for a few weeks of special feeding and condition- 

 ing, this means that the northern fighting season is in 

 October and November, and the southern season in 

 June and July. In the colder climates, wild crickets have 

 laid their eggs and died by late fall, but fanciers manage 

 to keep some of their pets alive — mostly for singing 

 rather than fighting — until well into the winter. 



Where to find the best fighters is a well-guarded 

 commercial secret, but legend often puts the best 

 cricket-catching areas in graveyards or in remote 

 mountains or other locations that are hard to get to. 

 Rock-dwelling crickets are said to be fiercer than those 

 that live in the grass, and diet — in the wild as well as in 

 captivity — is thought to play an important role in 

 determining a cricket's aggressiveness. Very high prices 

 were and still are paid for the best fighters. John Henry 

 Gray, a Canton resident during the 1870's noted that 

 owners of successful crickets won not only large sums of 

 money as bets but also trophies in the form of gilded, 

 flower-like ornaments. Deceased champion crickets 

 were buried in tiny silver coffins. 



Male crickets are the fighters and the singers; 

 females are kept only for breeding and, in the South at 

 least, for raising the morale of the opposite sex. The 

 males of many cricket species are naturally aggressive, 

 chirping a special song, which establishes territory, and 

 attacking other males when encounters occur. Those 

 kept for fighting in northern and eastern China gener- 



ally battle to the death, while those of the southern 

 fighting species, although larger and more ferocious- 

 looking, seem to calm down as soon as they have estab- 

 lished clear dominance over their opponents. A cricket 

 that has once been defeated is considered useless for 

 further fighting, becoming submissive and reluctant to 

 chirp. However, recent laboratory experiments in this 

 country have shown that deafened crickets retain their 

 aggressiveness even after losing several battles. We are 

 not sure whether cricket fanciers in China are aware of 

 this potentially valuable piece of information. 



Cricket Utensils 



In the opinion of the Chinese, one needs much more 

 than a perforated tin can to properly care for crickets. 

 The classic cricket literature recommends a wide range 

 of special apparatus for catching, keeping, breeding, 

 and transporting them. A representative list of basic 

 equipment is given by Li Shisun, a leading recent 

 authority on fighting crickets: jars used as cages, metal 

 containers used in cold weather, traps, and so forth. 



Thanks to Laufer, Field Museum has a large, well- 

 documented collection of cricket equipment which 

 includes most of the items in Li's inventory (fig. 1). 

 The Museum also has several items not specified by Li, 

 including ivory trophies, small porcelain water con- 

 tainers, and "ticklers" for encouraging reluctant crick- 

 ets to fight (fig. 2). These utensils can be made of a 

 wide variety of materials, ranging from wood and grass 



3. Cricket Gourds with ivory rims, -late 19th-early 20th cent.. Beijing (I. to r.). Heat-engraved 

 decorations: A continuous landscape is burned into the surface with heated l<nile or needle. The 

 scene has the 3-section format of many Chinese paintings — foreground with house and bridge, 

 middle ground with boats, background with mountains. Lid is single piece of carved ivory: 1 1 cm. 

 high: cat. 125968. Molded decoration: Raised design was formed by growing the gourd into 

 four-piece mold. It depicts two boys playing with toy elephant on wheels, surrounded with sym- 

 bols of wealth, good luck, and fertility. Details are highlighted by heat engraving. Lid has flat bone 

 top with 7 circular holes for ventilation. 9.5 cm high: cat. 127712. Carved decoration: Four peonies 

 around waist were carved in low relief, after which surface was stained and waxed to simulate 

 original gourd skin. Lid top is of carved jade and horn. 20.5 cm high: cat 127736. 



