The beak is pale lead blue; and the feet, which are rather large and very strong and well formed, are of a pale ashy-pink.

The two middle feathers of the tail have no webs, except a very small one at the base and at the extreme tip, forming wire-like cirrhi, which spread out in an elegant double curve, and vary from twenty-four to thirty-four inches long.

From each side of the body, beneath the wings, springs a dense tuft of long and delicate plumes, sometimes two feet in length, of the most intense golden-orange colour and very glossy, but changing towards the tips into a pale brown.

This tuft of plumage cam be elevated and spread out at pleasure, so as almost to conceal the body of the bird.
These splendid ornaments are entirely confined to the male sex, while the female is really a very plain and ordinary-looking bird of a uniform coffee-brown colour which never changes, neither does she possess the long tail wires, nor a single yellow or green feather about the dead.
The young males of the first year exactly resemble the females, so that they can only be distinguished by dissection.

The first change is the acquisition of the yellow and green colour on the head and throat, and at the same time the two middle tail feathers grow a few inches longer than the rest, but remain webbed on both sides.