Washed meat--so commonly used by the old falconers, that it may almost be said to have been a normal daily diet--is now but rarely given, unless, indeed, where a parsimonious or careless owner has neglected to provide fresh meat, and tainted beef is soaked and squeezed so as to make it available as food. The proper mode of preparing washed meat is to take it when quite fresh and immerse it for a while in cold water, and then dry it in a warm place. Part of its nutritive power--of its goodness, in fact--will then have disappeared, and what remains will digest quickly, leaving the hawk more keen and sooner hungry than if she had swallowed the same quantity of unwashed meat. For the smaller hawks it is less suitable than for the larger; and if it is desired to take them down a peg or two, it will generally be found best either to resort to a diet naturally light, such as rabbit or sheep's heart, or to reduce a little in quantity the accustomed allowance of their usual food. When a merlin is a bit bumptious, independent, and disobedient, her morning ration may be curtailed, or in feeding up after the day's exercise she may be indulged only with a good half-crop, instead of the habitual three-quarters. When a peregrine or hawk of similar habits is inclined to be uppish, and to disdain the dead lure, it is a good plan, besides being a shade stingy at dinner-time, to fly her each day at least an hour later than the day before. When, in this way, her time of flying has got to be so late that it cannot be deferred till later on the following day, give her a gorge, or at least a very full meal, when she has done flying, and on the next day, an hour after she has cast, give her quite a light feed, and do not fly her at all till the day after at noon. Sakers, lanners, and that class of hawks must be rather sternly treated if they get above themselves, for their nature is to support long fasts without much trouble. And eagles, of course, must sometimes be almost starved a little.