About six of the innermost of these plumes on each side have the midrib elongated into slender black wires, which bend at right angles, and curve somewhat backwards to a length of about ten inches, forming one of those extraordinary and fantastic ornaments with which this group of birds abounds.

The bill is jet black, and the feet bright yellow.

(See lower figure on the plate at the beginning of this chapter).
The female, although not quite so plain a bird as in some other species, presents none of the gay colours or ornamental plumage of the male.

The top of the head and back of the neck are black, the rest of the upper parts rich reddish brown; while the under surface is entirely yellowish ashy, somewhat blackish on the breast, and crossed throughout with narrow blackish wavy bands.
The Seleucides alba is found in the island of Salwatty, and in the north-western parts of New Guinea, where it frequents flowering trees, especially sago-palms and pandani, sucking the flowers, round and beneath which its unusually large and powerful feet enable it to cling.
Its motions are very rapid.

It seldom rests more than a few moments on one tree, after which it flies straight off, and with great swiftness, to another.