Today is Charles Darwin’s 199th birthday. Huzzah! The most famous of Victorian English naturalists, Darwin (1809-1882) is best known for his theory of evolution by means of natural selection, first published in the 1859 book, Origin of Species, and extended in Descent of Man (1871) and Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). In addition, however, he wrote a landmark multi-volume treatise on barnacles and did important research on the activity of earthworms as well. His Voyage of the Beagle (1839) — a book about his five-year trip around the world by ship (1831-1836) — was one of the most popular travelogues of its day.

One fellow out there has discovered this image of Darwin’s face in the stump of a sawed-off tree branch.

(Oh, and it’s the 199th birthday of Abraham Lincoln too!)