From the Philosophical Transactions of 1698 comes this weird tale of the day it rained fish:
'A letter from Dr. Rob Conny, to the late Dr. Rob Plot, F.R.S. : On Wednesday before Easter, Anno 1666, a pasture field at Cranstead near Wrotham in Kent, about two acres, which is far from any part of the sea or branch of it, and a place where are no fish ponds, but a scarcity of water, was all overspread with little fishes, conceived to be rained down, there having been at that time a great tempest of thunder and rain; the fishes were about the length of a man's little finger, and judged by all that saw them to be young whitings, many of them were taken up and shewed to several persons; the field belonged to one Ware a Yeoman, who was at that Easter sessions one of the Grand Inquest, and carried some of them to the sessions at Maidstone in Kent, and he showed them, among others, to Mr Lake, a bencher of the Middle Temple, who had one of them and brought it to London, the truth of it was averr'd by many that law the fishes lye scattered all over that field, and none in other the fields thereto adjoining; The quantity of them was estimated to be about a Bushel, being all together.'
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