Julie Barnum, age 11, of Phoenix, Arizona, for her question:

What do crickets eat?

Those cheerful sounding crickets are very hungry eaters. And unfortunately they often agree with us on the matter of suitable food. They also are fond of the greenery in our parks and gardens, especially violets and other favorite flowering plants. The ordinary field cricket often settles for a menu of roadside grasses. But often he descends upon a meadow with hordes of his hungry relatives. In a few hours, they may devour all the valuable grass intended for a whole herd of dairy cattle.

The burrowing mole cricket is rated as a pest from coast to coast. He devours young roots, and comes out at night to feed on tender seedlings and crops, especiallly peanuts and strawberries. The mormon cricket is a pest of the west. He likes wheat. This greedy gobbler arrived with hordes of relatives to devour the crops planted by the early Mormon settlers in Utah. But the Mormon's prayers were answered when a flock of hungry sea gulls arrived and devoured the cricket