Summer is a rush season, because of the heat and impatience, the time becomes shorter. The grass and trees were covered in a flash, and the sun rose to the sky in a blink of an eye. Even the rain was scattered, and it came and went in a hurry. Unlike the other three seasons, you can enjoy it there. This includes cicada singing, which is monotonous, uninterrupted and irritating, and it is simply aiding the abuse.
The ancients liked it. The cicadas in the west are singing, and the guests in the south are thinking deeply; Cicada makes the forest quieter and Tonamiyama quieter. Cicada is a must in poetry. In the eyes of the ancients, cicadas are purely spiritual creatures, nourished only by the wind and dew, and do not eat human fireworks, so they are divine. Sima Qian commented on Qu Yuan's saying that "cicadas are filthy and don't shed dust", which is the highest praise for his clean words and honesty. King Robin showed his true intention by combining the southern crested guest with the western cicada. Of course, that's something I didn't know until I grew up. When I first saw it, I just felt strange: aren't they afraid of noise?
They are not afraid, but grandma doesn't like being disturbed by these screaming guys, so she has been very strict with her children and acquiesced in our catching cicadas. It is a good thing to turn the game into a justified task, so we began to work excitedly under the leadership of my cousin. Equipment is not difficult to find, a fishing rod and a mass of flour; Knead the flour in water and remove the starch until a sticky mass remains. Stick this little batter on the pole and the trap will be completed. Carrying weapons, wandering under the buttonwood, looking at the dense branches and leaves, you will see a black cicada lying there screaming excitedly. Quietly put the bamboo pole in the past, and before the intoxicated singer came to his senses, his wings got stuck and struggled.
Cousin is sharp-eyed and handy, and she is an expert at sticking cicadas. She can handle a few in an afternoon. The way to deal with them is a bit cruel: burn, burn and eat. The method is simple. Just throw them into the oven cavity until a slightly burnt smell comes out, clip them out with pliers, turn around and shell them, and sprinkle some salt particles. In fact, I can't eat anything, but in my childhood, I was curious about everything, especially eating and not eating. The strange things I have eaten are plantain flowers, bean sprouts, croton grass, grape seedlings, tofu and so on. Roasted cicada is a common one. When I grow up, I officially eat fried cicada pupa. The material is not an old cicada, but a young cicada that has never seen the light of day underground. But I always feel less fragrant than when I was a child.
Besides, cicadas can also be collected, usually on low bushes and twigs under trees. Fabres once wrote about the process of the golden cicada shelling. I'm not that lucky, and of course I'm not that patient. Often when I find them, the shell has fallen off, leaving only an empty skin. This thing can be used as medicine and also collected by Chinese medicine shops, which is an important source of income when I was a child.
Fabres's Insect is a very good book, perhaps better than most books in the world. Some entomologists questioned his personification, thinking that literariness surpassed science and replaced human ethics and feelings too much, which was a complete failure. In any case, the person who can describe the insect world like that must be extremely gentle, which is a far cry from the little shark who only knows how to eat.