During a heavy shower on July 3, 1860, in South Granville, NY, a man heard “a peculiar sound at his feet.” Looking down he saw a foot long gray snake, “lying as if stunned by a fall. It then came to life.” This was recorded in Scientific American, 3-112.
–Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned, p. 93 (The Complete Books of Charles Fort, Dover, c1974).