Thomas J. Walker studied the songs of crickets and katydids

Thomas J. Walker studied the songs of crickets and katydids

Late summer evenings in much of North America carry a particular kind of insistence. It comes not from anything visible, but from a steady, patterned sound: a rasp, a pulse, a sequence that seems at once mechanical and expressive. For generations it was treated as background, a seasonal accompaniment to heat and dusk. Yet for those who listened more closely, the sound suggested something else—a system, perhaps even a language, shaped by anatomy …