A Strange and Wonderful RELATION Of a Flight of Pismires, That fell in the Town of Lichfield, and about the City of Coventrey.  
WITH The manner of their appearance in the Air; And their settling in the Town: Attested by several credible Witnesses.  
Licenced according to Order.  
LONDON, Printed for E. H. MDCLXIX.   

A Strange and  Relation OF A Flight of Pismires, &c:  
THere are two things which are in this, as all former Ages, worthy of the severest reproof, and they are Credulity, or a too light and easy belief on the one hand; and Incredulity, when men will not acknowledge or assent unto what is reasonably inferred; and this later too frequently befalls Wise men, though as absurd as the apprehensions of Fools, and the credulity of the people which promiscuously swallow any thing. We are not intending to obtrude upon the World any far-fetched Foreign matter, which a man had much better to believe than to go to prove or to beg your compassion from some Poetical Metamorphosis, but briefly & in the words of truth to give you the Relation of some few matters which have by the Attestation of many Credible Witnesses, happened here within our own World since the later end of July last. The things indeed some of them for their matter and circumstance so strange and unheardof, that I have not met with a Parallel in any Ancient or Modern Inquirer into the strange Accidents of present or past Times.  
In the Town of Lichfield in Staffordshire, a place of remark, in its being a Bishops See, on the one and thirtieth day of July last, being Saturday, between the hours of twelve and one a clock, in the time of a full Market, (that being a market-day there) on a sudden there appeared an innumerable Swarm of Pismires or Aunts with wings, which by their close keeping in a body, therewith and with their wings clouded and made dark the Sky; So many of them settled together in the Marketplace, and in several other Streets and Houses, that the ground was covered, and the market-people so annoyed, that they were forced to break up and be gone sooner by far than they used to do; for by Three of the Clock in the Afternoon the whole Market was dissolved: both People and Horses so grievously stung and tormented therewith, that they were forced to make what escape they could from them: Some Horses through the torment of their stinging ran up and down more like wild Creatures, than such as had been accustomed to the Saddle or burdens. Several of the Workmen that were employed about the repair of Lichfield Minster, were stung with them: And the People that were at Harvest, Work in the Fields, were forced to leave their business. After their continuance in this manner for three or four hours, or more, many of them fell down dead both in the Streets and Houses, but especially in the Streets in such prodigious quantities, that the Horses Hoofs were covered over treading among them: and not much less number in the houses, so that the People were compelled to sweep them out together; which being by that means brought together, made several heaps of them, to the bigness of a bushel of Corn or larger; They were judged by several of those that saw them, to have come out of the East. At length, the living remainder of them, which was not small, took their Flight to the Towns-end towards the North, where dividing themselves, as it were, into two bodies, they parted, some of them flying one way, some another: yet notwithstanding left both their terror and marks behind them among the People, who at the strangeness of the Prodigy were so much affrighted, that they knew not what to say or do, but very much admired the strangeness of the thing. These Pismires or Aunts were not like those that are commonly found in Molehills, but a great deal bigger; they were judged to be about the bigness of a Spider.  
The like thing about the same time happened (with some small varying circumstances) about the City of Coventry in , twenty miles from Lichfield, where multitudes of them fell, and in several other places; but we need not run over the Particulars anew, to trouble the Reader twice with one thing.  
This is the substance of what is received from persons of Eminency and Reputation, of whom Mr. Archbold, Register, is one, Mr. Boylston an Apothecary; Mr. John Rawlins, Town-Clerk; Mr. Samuel Mar●●and, one of His Majesty's Servants, and Mr. James Rixam, all Eye-witnesses thereof, besides many more, which would be too tedious here to mention.  
FINIS.