Now several things should be noted: he doesn't say all flies have four legs; he mentions a particular animal, the "ephemeron", which is most likely a species of mayfly, or.    From Wordnik.com.  [ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science] Reference

The question, which we're all asking, is: is this a significant and long-term change or just an ephemeron?.    From Wordnik.com.  [Q&Amp;A: How 9-11 Changed Media Coverage] Reference

Let not the ephemeron that lights on a baby's hand generalize too rashly upon the non-growing of organisms!.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864] Reference

It will be a far more memorable experience than anything the ephemeron of a steroid-fuelled 100 metre dash can offer.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2008-03-23] Reference

Hunt's image of Shelley as a stiffened ephemeron recalls the exquisite bodies tucked away in the ruins in the stanza I began by quoting.    From Wordnik.com.  [Shelley's Pod People] Reference

It would be useless to enter into the detail of the plot of an ephemeron, that depends more upon its quips and cranks than dramatic construction for its success.    From Wordnik.com.  [Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, July 17, 1841] Reference

The insect lives and flies about until the evening, but as the sun goes down it pines away, and dies at sunset having lived just one day, from which circumstance it is called the ephemeron.    From Wordnik.com.  [The History of Animals] Reference

Attaching self-esteem so inextricably to this physical ephemeron is just all kinds of cringe-inducing from the long view, as one imagines hard-won confidence melting slowly away as rock hard abs give way to the dreaded "jelly belly" once again.    From Wordnik.com.  [I Want to Wrap My Self-Esteem in a Package of Improbable Preservation! Rah Rah Rah!] Reference

In the sense of time, it is little more than an ephemeron.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Prairie Borgia] Reference

O man! wilt thou never conceive, that thou art but an ephemeron?.    From Wordnik.com.  [The System of Nature, Volume 1] Reference

Perhaps the perishing ephemeron enjoys a longer life than the tortoise.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 3] Reference

The scent was so strong that the ephemeron was almost intoxicated by it.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Sand-Hills of Jutland] Reference

Its three hundred and sixty-five years were now as but the day of the ephemeron.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Sand-Hills of Jutland] Reference

Like the ephemeron fly, they are born suddenly, and may be expected to die as soon.    From Wordnik.com.  [Thoughts on Man: His Nature, Productions, and Discoveries] Reference

If then women are not a swarm of ephemeron triflers, why should they be kept in ignorance under the specious name of innocence?.    From Wordnik.com.  [World of SL] Reference

Many a warm summer day had the ephemeron insect frolicked round the oak tree's head -- lived, moved about, and found itself happy; and when the little creature reposed for a moment in calm enjoyment on one of the great fresh oak leaves, the tree always said.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Sand-Hills of Jutland] Reference

Regarding the immensities receding over him in unfathomable abysses bursting with dust heaps of suns, must not man be dwarfed into unmitigated contempt, his life and character rendered absolutely insignificant, the utmost span of his fortunes seeming but as the hum and glitter of an ephemeron in a moment's sunshine?.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Destiny of the Soul A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life] Reference

And the ephemeron danced and floated about in the sunshine, and enjoyed itself with its pretty little delicate wings, like the most minute flower -- enjoyed itself in the warm air, which was so fragrant with the sweet perfumes of the clover-fields, of the wild roses in the hedges, and of the elder-flower, not to speak of the woodbine, the primrose, and the wild mint.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Sand-Hills of Jutland] Reference

Then the sickening as well as maddening conviction struck to his very soul, that though the envied and almost worshiped vizier of a mighty empire -- having authority of life and death over millions of human beings, and able to dispose of the governments and patronage of huge provinces and mighty cities -- he was but a miserable, helpless slave in the eyes of another greater still -- an ephemeron whom the breath of.    From Wordnik.com.  [Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf] Reference

But what will fame be to an ephemeron who no longer exists? and what will become of all history, in the eighteenth hour, when the world itself, even the whole Moulin Joly, shall come to its end, and be buried in universal ruin? ".    From Wordnik.com.  [Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader Being Selections from the Chief American Writers] Reference

Does Mr. Saville forget Mr. Herbert Spencer's apologue of the ephemeron which had never witnessed the change of a child into a man? ".    From Wordnik.com.  [Luck or Cunning?] Reference

Dust's flower and time's ephemeron.    From Wordnik.com.  [Behind the Arras A Book of the Unseen] Reference

"Sad!" the ephemeron always replied.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Sand-Hills of Jutland] Reference