First b'fly of spring(?) in Fairbanks

[Kenelm Philip]

	On 1 Feb. I got a phone call from someone living on a hilltop just
north of Fairbanks--he had just found a live butterfly inside his garage.
The garage was heated enough to hold it in the 50s (F)--and the butterfly
just appeared that day, on the floor of the building, looking rather
torpid but moving its wings a bit.

	A verbal description over the phone made me suspect _Nymphalis
vaualbum_ (Compton Tortoiseshell), which had suddenly shown  up in
Fairbanks last August. It wasn't until this afternoon that I got my hands
on the specimen--and it was indeed _vaualbum_. So we now have records for
that species from 3 sites near Fairbanks--after never having seen it here
in previous years going back to 1966.

	I had not expected to be collecting even one butterfly in early
February in Interior Alaska!

							Ken Philip




 
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