B. Above brown, spotted with black. ♂. Crown black.
a. Six to ten middle tail-feathers almost wholly black; the rest without black ends. ♂ with a nuchal collar of rufous or buff, and without rufous on the wings.
2. P. lapponicus. ♂. Head, all round, and jugulum, deep black; a post-ocular stripe, running downward behind the black jugular patch, and entire lower parts from the jugulum, white. Nuchal collar chestnut-rufous. ♀ with the black areas merely indicated by a dusky clouding, and merely a tinge of rufous round the nape. Hab. Circumpolar regions; south in winter into the United States.
3. P. pictus. ♂. Head above and laterally deep black, bordered anteriorly and below with white; a post-ocular stripe, and an ovate auricular spot of the same. Nuchal collar and entire lower surface bright buff. ♀. Pale grayish-buff, darker above; above distinctly, and on the jugulum obsoletely, streaked with black. Hab. Interior plains of North America, north to Arctic Ocean.
4. P. ornatus. ♂ Head above, and whole breast and abdomen, black; a superciliary stripe, side of head, chin, throat, anal region and crissum, white; nuchal collar rufous. ♀ hardly distinguishable from that of P. pictus.
a. Lesser wing-coverts brownish-gray; black feathers of breast, etc., without rufous edges. Hab. Interior plains of United States. … var. ornatus.
b. Lesser wing-coverts black; black feathers of breast, etc., with rufous edges. Hab. Southern plains of North America, and table-land of Mexico … var. melanomus.
b. Only two middle tail-feathers almost wholly black; the rest with black ends. ♂ without a nuchal collar of rufous or buff, and with rufous on the wings.
5. P. maccowni. ♂. Crown, and a broad crescent on the jugulum, black; rest of head and neck ashy, approaching white on the throat and over the eye; beneath white, above grayish-brown, streaked with black; middle wing-coverts rufous. ♀. Above yellowish-umber, beneath yellowish-white; thickly streaked above, unstreaked beneath. No rufous on wings, and no black on head or jugulum. Hab. Plains, from Texas, northward.
There seems to be no special reason for subdividing this genus, although this has been done,—P. nivalis being alone retained in Plectrophanes; P. maccowni forming the type and sole member of the genus Rhyncophanes