P. PEARSON 1952 Mothus (cont.) 10 feet ahead of the male and quite possibly out of sight the hen ran up as though sent for and stood on her back. I did not see at what point she squatted and could hear no noise (but times 100 yards away across rising stream). While he was on top of her, she crawled about 20 yards closer and shot top bird with .22. He scooted ahead about 10 feet and crawled, looking possibly wounded. The hen stood up, looked around, then walked a few yards into the grass. Decided to make sure of it, so shot him again, followed by fluttering & thrashing and collapse - about 2 minutes later heard calling nearby. Soon discovered the female standing on a rock about 5 yards from the dying dr. She was making hard motions & soft calls, but not loud calls. After about 2 minutes of this I shot at her and missed. She was not greatly alarmed, but started slowly up hill. Two more shots and broke her wing, upon which she scooted up 10 yards or so and hid. When flushed she did somersaults in the air. She had large egg in oviduct ready to lay (shell not hard, no fragrant) and at least 2 collapsed follicles. Male had penis partly protruding through cloaca. To summarise and help straighten out sex difficulty: F seems to be bigger, raise crest more than M, usually has rich brown - she takes the lead in feeding, does most of the robin-chip calling, defends the territory, if there is one, and chases away other females, but tolerates more than one or near her. The M follows along as the F feeds, postures occasionally by presenting his rump and fluffing its downy feathers, but we have not seen this have any mollifying effect on the F - in fact sometimes it seems to frighten her.