"Adult female.--General color above dark brown with a slight ashy shade, the feathers with sandy buff margins, so that the upper surface appears streaked; lower back and rump rather more uniform; wing-coverts ashy gray, the greater series browner, with fulvous margins like the inner secondaries, which have dusky frecklings also on the outer web; alula ashy brown, the outer feathers edged with white; primary-coverts and quills brown, externally shaded with ashy; first primary white along the outer web; tail-feathers dark brown, edged with lighter brown; crown uniform dark brown, forming a cap; hind neck like the back; lores, eyebrow, sides of face, and sides of neck dark sandy buff; throat and center of the abdomen white; remainder of under surface from the lower throat downwards pale isabelline buff, crossed with narrow wavy bars of dusky brown; lower flanks rather more uniform ashy brown; under tail-coverts more tawny, with dusky brown cross-bars; under wing-coverts and axillars uniform ashy brown, the edge of the wing white; quills uniform ashy brown below. Length, 305; culmen, 38; wing, 173; tail, 66; tarsus, 68; middle toe with claw, 91. "Young.--Resembles the old female, but much more tawny everywhere, especially on the sides of face, neck, and under parts, the latter being much more narrowly and indistinctly barred with dusky brown than in the adult birds." (Sharpe.) "A male and female adult from Catanduanes in the brownish buff plumage of autumn and winter. Neither Dr. Sharpe, in his Catalogue, nor any other author, so far as I am aware, makes the slightest reference to the autumn change of plumage which is so marked in the male, only the breeding dress being described, in which the whole of the hind neck and under parts, as well as the general color of the upper parts, are black. In the fully adult male before me the whole of the under parts from the throat downward are pale buff with rather fine, somewhat wavy, brownish black bars, except on the middle of the belly, which is paler and nearly devoid of markings; the under tail-coverts have the ground-color more rufous-buff; the rest of the plumage also resembles that of the female. The latter does not appear to have any different breeding plumage, or, if she changes, the feathers are very similar to those of the autumn dress." (Grant.) "Abundant about paddy-fields in some localities. It nests on the ground in these fields, and the natives found a number of nests for us while cutting rice. They call the bird tug-túg from its note." (Bourns and Worcester MS.)