journey to Juneau, Alaska, on the Grampus. Like Steinbeck, Campbell played with a novel written round Ricketts as hero, but unlike Steinbeck, didn't complete the book. Bruce Robison writes that "Campbell would refer to those days as a time when everything in his life was taking shape.... Campbell, the great chronicler of the "hero's journey" in mythology, recognized patterns that paralleled his own thinking in one of Ricketts's unpublished philosophical essays. Echoes of Carl Jung, Robinson Jeffers and James Joyce can be found in the work of Steinbeck and Ricketts as well as Campbell." Henry Miller wrote about Ricketts in his book The Air-Conditioned Nightmare: [Ed Ricketts is] "a most exceptional individual in character and temperament, a man radiating peace, joy and wisdom" and said that Ricketts was (apart from L. C. Powell) the only person whom Miller, during his journey across USA, found being "satisfied with his lot, adjusted to his environment, happy in his work, and representative of all that is best in the American tradition." Ecology In Ricketts' day, ecology was early in its development. Now-common concepts such as habitat, niche, succession, predator-prey relationships, and food chains were not yet mature ideas. Ricketts was among a few marine biologists who studied intertidal organisms in an ecological context. His first major scientific work — now regarded as a classic in marine ecology, and in its fifth edition — was Between Pacific Tides, published in 1939, co-authored with Jack Calvin. The third and fourth editions were revised by Joel Hedgpeth, a contemporary of Ricketts and Steinbeck; Hedgpeth continued the book's taxonomic excellence, while retaining its ecological approach. The pioneering nature of Ricketts' book may be appreciated by comparison with another classic work, now in its fourth edition, that was published two years later, in 1941: Light's Manual, by S. F. Light, of the University of California, Berkeley. Light's Manual is technical, difficult for laymen, but essential for specialists. On the other hand, Ricketts' Between Pacific Tides is readable, full of observations and side comments, and readily accessible to anyone with a genuine interest in seashore life. It cannot serve as a thorough manual to marine invertebrates, but it addresses the common and conspicuous animals in a style that invites and educates newcomers and offers substantial information for experienced biologists. It is not organized according to taxonomic classification, but instead by habitat. Thus, crabs are not all treated in the