DARWIN AND THE BEAGLE by Alan Moorehead. Illustrated. 280 pages. Harper & Row. $15. Any pleasant Sunday afternoon aboard H.M.S. Beagle, outward bound from Plymouth in 1831 on a scientific voyage ...

Recently, we saw a classic example of this when a Beagle and a German Shorthaired Pointer banded together to take on a field mouse in their driveway. No mice were harmed, but it was really cute ...