it is true that not all the winter had been cold and stormy. there were times when the drifts melted slowly into the earth, and the grass, which last summer had been so tender and green, showed brown and matted on the ground. still the great horned owl and his wife could not find enough to eat. "we do not mean to complain," said he with dignity, as he scratched one ear with his feathered right foot, "but neither of us has had a meal hearty enough for a healthy robin, since the first heavy snow came."