when using the statement $("[id^='sel']").length with 2 html select tags on my page with id's of 'selInspector' and 'selPeriods' each having several child nodes (<option />) the length equals 2 in version 1.2.6

The same attribute filter in 1.3.1 returns a number equal to the combined number of the child nodes of both <select/> tags. In my case 382. This means doing something like alert($("[id^='sel']").attr("id")); returns undefined because its actually looking at the first child node. To get the correct id i have to now use alert($("[id^='sel']")parent().attr("id")); I see this as a bug because it doesn't select the object I want but instead returns me the child nodes of the objects I want.