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1961
Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society
115
B0L0R1A SELENE (NYMPHALID^E) IN WASHINGTON
The recent note on the occurrence of Boloria selene tollandensis (Barnes & Benjamin) in Oregon, by Ray Albright in vol.14: p.158 of the Journal, prompts the penning of this one as a correlate.
So far as is known, only two records exist for the capture of B. selene in Washington. In or before 1916, the late John C. Hopfinger of Brewster, Washington, collected one or more specimens near Gamble's Mill northwest of Brewster in Okanogan County. The specimens were later lost in Texas. Also, Leighton's check list of the Butterflies of Washington notes one "well-defined specimen" as having been taken by Ruby Curtiss at Malott on April 14, 1938. Aside from these two records, the species is not known to have been collected in this state. However, it does occur in the Vaseaux Lake area of British Columbia's Okanogan Valley, only twenty five miles north of the Washington border.
This past spring, a field trip was planned especially for the purpose of ferreting out the species in the Okanogan area of northern Washington, contiguous with the Canadian border. May 28 and 29, a beautiful pair of spring days, provided choice opportunity for the trip. "Field headquarters" were established in the little town of Oroville, and the warm daylight hours spent in browsing through the foothills of the Cascades to the west of the town.
The first day out proved to be the eventful one. Our road wound its way westward through the canyon of the Similkameen River, intersected by myriad gullies and dry rocky stream beds (among which a beautiful series of Phyciodes barnesi was taken). Our appetites so nicely whetted, we arrived in the vicinity of Palmer Lake. Along its south-east shore, the prize was found. Here there are inviting marsh-edged meadows, bedecked with Indian Paint Brush and a tall, purplish-white aster. Apparently conditions were just right, for in one of these meadows, among the asters, we stumbled upon a well-established colony of B. selene. Two days' collecting yielded a fine series of sixteen newly emerged specimens, nine males and seven females. All were taken on or near the tall aster which grows in the moist inner third of the meadow, closest to its marshy bank.
Future collecting in the Palmer Lake region will undoubtedly clear up the matter as to whether or not there are later broods of selene this far north.
Dan Carney, Jr., 4719 2nd Ave., N. E., Seatle 5, Wash., U. S. A.