Regarding "quadrillions," the following evidence leaves me no other recourse but to bow to Mr. Wilbur.
"In an unheralded and sometimes annoying consequence of cleaner waterways, mayflies are mating and dying in greater numbers than they have in half a century. The insects have been swarming in such volumes this summer that they have to be shoveled from riverside streets and scraped from bridges with snowplows.
Fifteen times this summer at twilight, Randall A. Grady, the police chief in this little Mississippi River town, said he had to dispatch an officer to turn off the street lights so as not to attract the mating flies. One night, he said, the officer had to put on a raincoat because there were so many winged missiles in the air.
With layers of slippery, dying mayflies on the streets, people here say an evening stroll can be perilous. The dead flies coat the decks of boats. Mornings after a big swarm, merchants have to power-wash the corpses from their windows.
"They build up, layer upon layer," said Cathy Corpian, who has a bookkeeping and telephone answering service here. "They're greasy. They stick to you. They stink. They smell like dead fish."
But Ms. Corpian added, "They're good." "
I'm used to prowling somewhat smaller rivers than the Mississippi. Mayfly swarms over the Great Lakes get picked up by Doppler radar. "Incoming! Duck."
I don't think that Wilbur had the Mississippi or Lake Superior in mind, given the details of his poem, or he might have resorted to "bazillions."
Bob the Penitent
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