This species is about 2 3/4 feet long, of which more than 1 foot belongs to the tail; the stretch of its wings is about 3 3/4 feet. The plumage is magnificent and very brightly coloured. The head, neck, breast, and belly are scarlet; the feathers of the neck and upper part of the back have a greenish edge, which becomes broader lower down. The middle and lower regions of the back, the rump, and under tail-covers are a beautiful sky blue; the upper feathers of the wings are scarlet; the middle, hinder, under, and shoulder feathers green, the latter shaded with red; the front wing-covers are ultramarine on the outer web, and on the inner pale red. The same is the case with the inner wing-covers; the middle tail-feathers are more or less red, the inner web of the quills black. On the naked flesh-coloured cheeks, which look as though powdered with white flour, are five or six rows of little pencil-shaped red feathers, implanted near the nostrils, and ranged around the eyes; the beak is of a clear horn colour, black at the point and edge, as is the lower mandible; the eyes are yellowish white, the feet blackish grey, the claws brownish black. The two sexes are alike in colour, the young birds more delicately tinted than the old ones. In the variety of this bird represented in the frontispiece to Part I., the colours are somewhat different. The principal portion of the plumage is bright scarlet, the quill-feathers of the wings fine blue, the greater wing-coverts yellow, tinged with green, the upper and under tail-coverts blue, the two middle feathers of the tail crimson, and the remainder of the tail-feathers, which gradually decrease in length towards the sides, are partly red and partly blue; the feet are dusky black, the naked skin of the cheeks wrinkled and white, the upper mandible whitish, and the lower one black or dusky.