To teach the foal to suck, a fig or a date soaked in milk slightly salted is put into his mouth. As soon as he has taken a liking to it and begins to suck it, he is placed under his dam. After two or three attempts he soon mistakes the dug for the fig or date he has just left, and the thing is done. After that he is carefully preserved from the night-cold. But it is also necessary to accustom him to drink camel's and ewe's milk. It is done in this manner. They take a goat's skin used several years for holding milk, and fill it with air. Then squeezing it gently, they blow up his nostrils a few times. By way of complement to this operation they crush dates in milk, which impart to it a sweetish flavour and then place the mixture close to the foal's mouth, forcing him every now and then to dip his lips into it. He begins by tasting and licking it and after a while drinks it, whether the dam gives him suck or not. Great importance is attached to teaching the foal to drink milk; first, because he can thus be left in the tent while the mare is again put to work; and secondly, because in after years, in default of water, he will be satisfied with milk instead, and also as food if barley runs short. Should the mare take an aversion to her young, she must be separated from him, and the latter must be brought up on camel's milk, as this is deemed preferable to the milk of the cow or the she-goat, which produces laziness and heaviness. A few days or a few months after the birth of a foal, some Arabs slit one or both of the ears. This fancy is accounted for in various ways. According to one party this operation is performed on animals born in the night time, because they ought to have a better sight than those that come into the world during the day. According to others, it is done to foals born on Friday, the day of the gathering together of Mussulmans at the mosque, because it is a lucky sign. The truth is simply this: The master of a tent has a child of tender years, whom he loves very dearly. In slitting the ear of his foal he declares that he reserves him for his son so-and-so. Should the father afterwards die, no one would dispute the possession of the animal with the child thus named. Others, however, slit the ear of a foal that has the colic; the bleeding saves him.