Adult female.--Differs from the adult male in having median crown-line and sides of face pale straw or whitish; a narrow collar of dull chestnut; above generally darker and marked with a greater amount of dull chestnut. Wing, 60 to 64; tail, 18 to 22; culmen, 9.5 to 11.5; tarsus, 17 to 18.
Young.--Immature birds are similar to adults but have the breast white, streaked with dark brown; upper parts more uniformly and less richly colored.
Eggs.--White with numerous, obscure, lilac markings; around the larger end a band of dark sienna; larger end covered to middle of egg with a wash of dark brown; edge of this color-area well-defined and slightly irregular; smaller end of egg with a few small specks and a faint brown wash. Two eggs measure respectively 20 by 16 and 20 by 16.5. Another egg, measuring 20.6 by 16.2, is white, speckled with brown and has nearly one-half the surface, at the larger end, covered with dark vandyke-brown. Eggs are deposited in August so far as known.
The only known specimens of Whitehead's button quail were purchased in the Quinta Market, Manila. It is said that they are trapped in the vicinity of Parañaque, some 7 kilometers from Manila.
Turnix suluensis Mearns, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. (1905), 18, 83; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 8.
"Adult female (type and only specimen).--General color of upper parts walnut-brown, the feathers finely banded and vermiculated with gray and black; top of head clove-brown, the feathers almost imperceptibly edged with gray, divided by a median stripe of isabella-color extending from the base of the bill to the occiput; sides of head and neck buffy white speckled with clove-brown; nape walnut-brown, the feathers edged with gray; mantle walnut-brown, the feathers edged with gray, and vermiculated with black, gray, and traces of very pale cinnamon; lower back, rump, and upper tail-coverts clove-brown, the feathers narrowly edged with gray on the back and upper rump, more broadly with cinnamon on the lower rump and upper tail-coverts; tail grayish drab, the feathers perceptibly cross-banded with wavy lines of dusky, edged with cinnamon on outer webs, with middle pair of feathers extending 7 mm. beyond the next pair; scapulars and humerals conspicuously edged externally with golden buff and cinnamon; primaries grayish drab, the two outer ones edged externally with wood-brown; secondaries darker drab, edged with cinnamon on the outer web; greater wing-coverts cinnamon, drab at base, with a subterminal black spot on the outer web; lesser wing-coverts cinnamon-rufous, edged with buff, with a subterminal black ocellus; chin, upper throat, and malar region, whitish, the last speckled with blackish brown; lower neck and upper breast clay-color, bordered by a chain of oval black spots, the largest 3 mm. in length; lower breast and middle of belly whitish; sides of lower neck, and sides of chest and breast, chestnut mixed with black and clay-color; flanks light clay-color; under tail-coverts darker clay-color; lining of wings pale clay-color and pale grayish drab. Length of skin, 120; wing, 68; tail, 31; culmen, 11.5; depth of bill at angle of gonys, 3.8; tarsus, 19.5." (Mearns.)