Celebrate Darwin Day with your nearest Beagle

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beagle_puppy_portrait.jpg
 
Today is Darwin's day, his birthday, to be exact, so it's appropriate to celebrate with a beagle.  Long ago in my family there was a beagle, at least that's what we thought he was, found in the road in unrecognizably awful shape, solid with mud, three baths finally showed his lovely coat colors, and his once broken never fixed little legs, misshapen for the rest of his life but not bothering him.

Much later we found out he was in fact a posh dog.  An American Foxhound.  But since those guys can run incredible distances on the hunt, we never did find his origin.  Could have been in the woods of Pennsylvania, nobody knew.  Anyway, he was our Beagle, so there.

So he lived with us for the rest of his life, and Handsome Partner immediately named him Darwin.  Seemed obvious to us.  But then we had Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, Darwin, on the shelf. That's how the spine read, so clearly the Beagle's real name was Darwin...well, you had to be there.

Darwin became our five year old son's best friend.  They'd look out of the window together, Darwin being long enough to get his paws up on the sill, and HS would put an arm around his dogfriend's shoulders, very sweet.

So do something intellectual today, and celebrate Darwin and his discoveries.  His kids drew pictures on his manuscripts, did you know that? what a nice dad. I saw a pic of a battle between a carrot on horseback and a mounted knight or something, great imagination, created by one of his children.