engine invented for punishing scolds and turbulent women, by ducking them in water. It was called in ancient times a tumbril, and sometimes a triclinium. In Domesday-book it is styled cathedra storceris; and it was in use even in the Saxon times, when it was described as cathedra in qua rixosae mulieres sedentes aquis desecrabantur. It was ancients also a punishment inflicted upon brewers and bakers for transgressing the laws. In such a stool they were immersed over head and ears in storece, that is, in stinking water. Some think it a corruption from ducking-stool; others from choking-stool, quia hoc modo demerse aquis fere suffocantur.

Cuckow. See Ornithology.