In the course of the morning, two red-breasted nuthatches tormented the woodpeckers for fifteen minutes. * * * They hovered around the hole with drooping wings, holding their tails up like wrens. One of them finally ventured into the hole so far that just his tail was protruding. They would fly away when the parents approached the hole, but would return as soon as the nest was unprotected. After some time the male woodpecker went into the hole, evidently intending to peck them in case they should look into it. During the three minutes he remained in the hole, he managed to keep from looking out for one straight minute. Nevertheless, he was greatly agitated, and would look out every few seconds to see if the nuthatches were approaching,--his crown-patch showing brightly. At last the male nuthatch came to the edge of the hole, whereat the woodpecker made an unsuccessful attempt to peck his opponent, afterward flying out with a rush, and chasing the nuthatch for some distance on the wing. Soon after that four Canada jays approached, and one of them ventured near the nest hole, but the woodpecker and a hermit thrush succeeded in driving him and his companions away, and they did not return. Joseph Dixon (1927) tells of an attempt by a black bear to rob a nest of young Arctic three-toed woodpeckers: This nest was located only four feet above the ground in a large live lodgepole pine. My attention was first attracted to the locality by the unusually vigorous scolding of the parent woodpeckers. A closer approach revealed the cause of the excitement. A bear had located the nest, probably through the noise of the young woodpeckers, which were old enough to come to the nest entrance to receive food, and which squealed with anticipation of a meal any time any bird, animal or person came close to the nest tree. In an endeavor to get at the young in the nest, the bear had bitten out slabs of green wood twelve inches long, two inches wide, and one-quarter of an inch thick. The muddy stains around the inside of the nest entrance showed that the bear had thrust his nose into the hole repeatedly. But after gnawing over an area 10 by 10 inches on the tree trunk to a depth of more than an inch, the bear gave it up as a bad job. Had the nest been in an old stump, the outcome would probably have been different. This offers a reasonable explanation of the tendency of certain woodpeckers to nest in living trees. Mr. Kennard tells in his notes of a female hummingbird that attacked one of these woodpeckers: “Several times she swooped down at the woodpecker, who, quick as a flash, would dodge around the trunk and out of her way.”