Three nests of Sphy. varius [Sphyrapicus varius]
MAINE, (L. Umbagog. [Umbagog Lake, Maine])
1876.
(June 3 [June 3, 1876]) force, for upon cutting open the hole we
found the eggs (three) all whole. I shot
both birds and found the [male] a so called
var. nuchalis [Sphyrapicus varius nuchalis]. The ovaries of the [female] contained
four more eggs of varius [sic] [various] sizes. This hole
was bored in very hard "dry rotten" wood.
It was 30 ft [feet] up, the orifice 1 1/4 in. in diam. [diameter]
& the nest cavity 12 1/2 in [inches] deep with
a diameter of about 5 inches. The birds
made a good deal of noise & were very
tame. Continuing down the lake we
found another nest of the same bird
in an Quercus rubra oak at Ellinwoods landing.
This hole was lower than any that I
have seen, not over 15 ft above the water
& my man succeeded in climbing to it
and bringing down the set of six fresh 
eggs in safety. This hole I could not
measure but it was about 12 in. deep.
About a mile below this we found a
third nest in a very tall stub at
least 50 feet up and after some ten
minutes skillfull [
skillful] work with the axe
the tree came thundering down. In this
nest we found two broken eggs the
height of the fall having pressed forward too much
for them. This hole was [one and ten/sixteenths] in [inches] in diam. [diameter]
at mouth with a perpendicular depth
of 16 inches but the wood was somewhat
softer than in either of the other trees.
The stub at Ellinwoods was the only one
that I ever saw that did not contain
a number of holes. In both of those
that we cut down there were at
least five or six finished mating holes