The Crickets of Altinho

When the first crickets appeared in Altinho in early October, no one thought much of it. After all, they were probably attracted by new mercury vapor lamps in the main square. Besides, far worse problems bedeviled the poor farming town of 4,500 in Brazil's barren Northeast, 100 miles from Recife, most notably a searing drought that had destroyed two harvests in the past three years.

The trouble was that the crickets kept coming, and they were twice the size of the common cricket found in the U.S. At night, the patter of crickets landing on roof tiles was like the sound of rain, which the town had seldom heard in recent years. Turning out the mercury vapor lamps helped little; the crickets invaded lighted houses instead. Turning out indoor lights meant a darkness in which crickets suddenly lit on eyes or mouths or necks. Worst of all was the sickening crunch of crickets underfoot and the unending chirp-chirp-chirp of their monotonous serenade.

God's Displeasure. Some townspeople gave up and fled. Others daily swept piles of dead crickets from their houses for a huge truck to haul away. Schools closed because pupils could no longer concentrate.

Mayor Julio Rodrigues used his meager municipal funds to send two DDT sprayers through the town. The spray made some people vomit, but the crickets "just licked it off and kept on coming," said Schoolteacher Mariestela Barros. Some Altinhos thought the plague was a sign that God was displeased with long hair, miniskirts, rock music and the decrease in churchgoing among Altinho's youth. But Dona Nina Lemos, another of the town's schoolteachers, questioned that notion. She wondered: "If God were going to punish clothing styles, wouldn't he send a plague on Rio or New York or Paris? Why Altinho?"

Some Coincidence. Pondering all this, Padre Pedro Solano, the town's priest, fell back on what he called "the weapons of faith." He decreed a daily penitential procession in which townspeople shouldered a statue of St. Sebastian, the guardian against plague, and asked him to deliver them from crickets. After the initial procession of 500 hopeful believers, the insect horde slackened. After the third came a torrential rain that helpfully washed away countless cricket corpses and held down further attacks.

Last week the crickets seemed to have disappeared and a final procession ended with a Mass of thanksgiving to St. Sebastian. "I'm not one of your fanatical Catholics," said Town Radio Operator Waldir de Barros Correia. "But if it wasn't St. Sebastian, it was one hell of a coincidence." As many as ten other towns in the area reported infestations, however, and in two of them church services had to be halted for the first time in memory because the crickets' chirping drowned out the priests.

Studying the situation last week, Brazilian entomologists pointed out that crickets are controlled by toads, each of which can devour 300 cricket nymphs a night. But for four years in Brazil's Northeast, toads have been hunted for skins, which sell well in the U.S. to make purses, belts and watchbands. Without toads, the cricket population exploded. Until the two get into equilibrium again, St. Sebastian has his work cut out.

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