This magnificent American fowl, like the more domestic weathercock, may often be seen wheeling through the air on the approach of a storm, and exhibits unmistakable signs of exultation when it is going to thunder. It is not a bird of song, but is unsurpassed as a screamer. To the common Kite, a plebeian member of the genus, has been ascribed an attribute which in fact belongs exclusively to this Banner species. The Kite, according to Dr. FRANKLIN, draws the lightning from the clouds, but this, in reality, is the proud prerogative of the Great American Eagle, the noblest of the falcon tribe, which may often be seen with a sheaf of flashes in its talons, rushing through the skies as a lightning express. It feeds on all the inferior birds, but its principal food is the American Bunting, which it bears fluttering aloft in its powerful mandibles. Strange to say, its feats with the electric fluid, and its fondness for the Bunting, have not been noticed by any of the great naturalists; but as innumerable artists have depicted the bird in the very act of scattering the one and carrying off the other, the omission is not, practically, of the slightest consequence.

The habitat of the Birdofreedom was originally limited to about twelve degrees of latitude, but being like the Imperial Eagle of Italy (now extinct,) given to Roam, it has within the last fifty years greatly enlarged the area of its feeding grounds. It is now found as far North as the Border of the Arctic Sea, where it cultivates amicable relations with the hyperborean humming-bird, and Professor GRANT is at present attempting to naturalize it in Saint Domingo. The time is probably not far distant when it will prune its morning wing on the upper pole, and go to roost on the equator. It is, upon the whole, a grasping bird, and inspires the weaker tribes with terror; yet, notwithstanding its fierceness, it perches familiarly on the Arms of the American people.

Although the Birdofreedom makes a magnificent appearance at all seasons, it is in its fullest feather about the Fourth of July. Its truculent disposition is then manifested by a threatening attitude toward the Anglo-Saxon Lion, (Leo Britannicus,) which it has twice worsted in single combat, and to whose well-knit frame it is prepared at any moment to administer a third sockdologer.

There are many varieties of the Eagle—as the Russian and Prussian, (which, singularly enough, have two heads,) the bald Eagle, the Osprey or Sea Eagle, the Golden Eagle, &c. The Golden species was formerly quite common in the United States, but has now almost entirely disappeared. Of the smaller species of the genus Falco, it is only necessary to say that, like the Eagle, they are inedible. In other words, though excellent for hawking, they are too tough for spitting.