英语博客：Crunchy crickets.

　　house, at night, when everyone is asleep, the sounds of nature fill the air. Actually, the noises don't come from outside, but inside the house, and I'm not talking about my husband snoring. Chirp¹, chirp, chirp, is what we hear. It is the familiar sound of crickets. Normally, we would get cricket noises in our garden in the Summer. But it's only March, and these crickets are in a glass cage, living happily for a few days, until they get fed to our lizards². We have a leopard³ gekko and a bearded dragon who need a good, tasty meal every now and then. The lizards belong to the kids, but because I am the mum of the house, I am the one who basically takes care of the animals. I'm the one who goes off to the pet shop to by these bags of wriggling⁴, jumpy insects. I'm also the one who has to feed them, so they can be healthy enough to feed Anthony and Dillon, the family reptiles⁵. There is a lot of feeding going on in this house, and unfortunately for me, it involves crickets. I do love their chirping⁶ noises; however, at night they get very loud, and so I have to put their cage in the room that is farthest from the bedrooms. My sister-in-law used to have reptiles, and told me a horror story that involved crickets. She had bought an extra large bag of crickets from the pet shop, so she wouldn't have to return for a few weeks. She purchased two hundred and fifty crickets in all, and happily took them home so her sons could feed the lizards. Well, at some point in the process, a hole appeared in the bag, and all of the crickets escaped and ran into various places of her house. Two hundred and fifty of them! She said that it took them days to find the noisy ones, but it's a mystery what happened to a large number of the others, the smart ones who kept their mouths shut, or should I say, their legs still.
Grammar notes.
Related verbs: to fill the air, to feed, to chirp, to involve.
1. The sound of jazz filled the air as the musician practiced the saxophone.
2. Come on kids, you need to feed the dogs!
3. In Spring, the birds chirp very loudly early in the morning.
4. The criminal case involved a teacher, a lawyer, and a baker⁷.

1 chirp   

v.(尤指鸟)唧唧喳喳的叫

参考例句：

• The birds chirp merrily at the top of tree.鸟儿在枝头欢快地啾啾鸣唱。
• The sparrows chirp outside the window every morning.麻雀每天清晨在窗外嘁嘁喳喳地叫。

2 lizards   

n.蜥蜴( lizard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Nothing lives in Pompeii except crickets and beetles and lizards. 在庞培城里除了蟋蟀、甲壳虫和蜥蜴外，没有别的生物。 来自辞典例句
• Can lizards reproduce their tails? 蜥蜴的尾巴断了以后能再生吗？ 来自辞典例句

3 leopard   

n.豹

参考例句：

• I saw a man in a leopard skin yesterday.我昨天看见一个穿着豹皮的男人。
• The leopard's skin is marked with black spots.豹皮上有黑色斑点。

4 wriggling   

v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕

参考例句：

• The baby was wriggling around on my lap. 婴儿在我大腿上扭来扭去。
• Something that looks like a gray snake is wriggling out. 有一种看来象是灰蛇的东西蠕动着出来了。 来自辞典例句

5 reptiles   

n.爬行动物，爬虫( reptile的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Snakes and crocodiles are both reptiles. 蛇和鳄鱼都是爬行动物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Birds, reptiles and insects come from eggs. 鸟类、爬虫及昆虫是卵生的。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

6 chirping   

鸟叫，虫鸣( chirp的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The birds,chirping relentlessly,woke us up at daybreak. 破晓时鸟儿不断吱吱地叫，把我们吵醒了。
• The birds are chirping merrily. 鸟儿在欢快地鸣叫着。

7 baker   

n.面包师

参考例句：

• The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
• The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。