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Look at this from Wikipedia... Pets!

Crickets as pets

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Keeping crickets as pets emerged in China in early antiquity. Initially, crickets were kept for their "songs" (stridulation). In the early 12th century the Chinese people began holding cricket fights.[note 1] Throughout the Imperial era the Chinese also kept pet cicadas and grasshoppers, but crickets were the favorites in the Forbidden City and with the commoners alike. The art of selecting and breeding the finest fighting crickets was perfected during the Qing dynasty and remained a monopoly of the imperial court until the beginning of the 19th century.

The Imperial patronage promoted the art of making elaborate cricket containers and individual cricket homes. Traditional Chinese cricket homes come in three distinct shapes: wooden cages, ceramic jars, and gourds. Cages are used primarily for trapping and transportation. Gourds and ceramic jars are used as permanent cricket homes in winter and summer, respectively. They are treated with special mortar to enhance the apparent loudness and tone of a cricket's song. The imperial gardeners grew custom-shaped molded gourds tailored to each species of cricket. Their trade secrets were lost during the Chinese Civil War and the Cultural Revolution, but crickets remain a favorite pet of the Chinese to the present day. The Japanese pet cricket culture, which emerged at least a thousand years ago, has practically vanished during the 20th century.

Chinese cricket culture and cricket-related business is highly seasonal. Trapping crickets in the fields peaks in August and extends into September. The crickets soon end up at the markets of Shanghai and other major cities. Cricket fighting season extends until the end of autumn, overlapping with the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day. Chinese breeders are striving to make cricket fighting a year-round pastime, but the seasonal tradition prevails.

Modern Western sources recommend keeping pet crickets in transparent jars or small terrariums providing at least two inches of soil for burrowing and containing egg-crate shells or similar objects for shelter.[1] A cricket's life span is short: Development from an egg to imago takes from one to two months. The imago then lives for around one month. Cricket hobbyists have to frequently replace aging insects with younger ones which are either specifically bred for cricket fighting or caught in the wild. This makes crickets less appealing as pets in Western countries. The speed of growth, coupled with the ease of breeding and raising larvae, makes industrial-grown crickets a preferred and inexpensive food source for pet birds, reptiles, and spiders.

... We fed crickets to various reptiles, amphibians and fish in our stores.  We also sold them.  When there were too many crickets loose in the store we would let a few lizards free at the end of the day, turn the coffee pot on and come to work the next day to a quiet store ... the lizards keeping themselves warm near the coffee pot.

Do I like the sound?  I don't really hear it after working with animals for so many years.

Yes, I enjoy the sound of crickets, Clu.

It's definitely a lovely part of summer.

Cicadas, however, I can do without.

I love the sound of crickets. I had a few in my house and they were chirping all night long.

i love the sound of crickets and other night life bugs and animals. i could sit all night on my porch and just listen.

I love the sound of crickets.Did you know if you find one in your house, it means Good Luck?

I love the sound a cricket makes; sounds like summer. That and the fireflies mean summer in Texas. Did you know if you counted the number of times the cricket rubbed it's legs together and did the math, you could figure out the temperature? I don't know how, google it.....

country bumpkin

I forgot about this. Yes, it's true.

I think that they sound better from the porch than they do from within the house when you are in bed trying to sleep!  And you I think they are so diverse that you would find them on every continent, maybe not Antarctica!  

I've had a few of them sneak into my house and had to catch and release them into the garbage... They make good bait for fishing...

I don't mind them outside or while camping, but not in my house. I suppose when its 112 degrees outside they are just seeking some relief like every other living creature in the desert. But it looks like I'm gonna have to adopt a rescue cat or something, they are trying to take over the house lately...

Love the noise.  Keep the country, COUNTRY!