In contrast to the soft trill of the field cricket — "the bard of the grass, " one poet calls them — cicadas and katydids produce the kind of deafening hiss that can drown out conversation.

Cricket keeps an off-field umpire for boundary calls, and to ascertain whether batsmen are run out and if catches are real.

Cricket keeps an off-field umpire for boundary calls, and to ascertain whether batsmen are run out, and if catches are real.