periwinkle n2 Also sp perrywinkle [By ext from periwinkle any of var marine gastropod mollusks, esp of the genus Littorina (OED2 1530 →)] Cf pennywinkle n
[. . .]
2 = caseworm n. [From the resemblance of the case of the caddis fly larva to a snail shell] chiefly NW, CA Cf pennywinkle n 3
1890 Weekly Bee (Sacramento CA) 3 Sept 6/8 WA, They [=water ouzels] will start slowly, very slowly, to wade right down into the water until they disappear from view, but if the water is clear . . you can still see their little dark forms clinging to the bottom in search of their morning repast, which consists of periwinkles. 1909 OR Daily Jrl. (Portland) 17 June [7]/3 cwID, He had been hunting periwinkles to bait his hook and it is believed the revolver fell from the holster and striking a rock exploded. 1927 Pittsburgh Sun. Post (PA) 10 Apr sec 3 11/6, A couple experts took a greenie along up to Forest county last season. . . Along came a farmer who showed the tenderfoot the queer periwinkles in the sandy springs, and how to break open the shells and extract the black eyed larvae. 1948 Baumann Old Man Crow’s Boy 49 ID, We turned over the rocks in the stream-bottom to get the bugs and worms on which they fed: periwinkles, which we called “rock-worms” on account of the little cases or houses which they made out of rock particles and cemented about themselves. 1966–69 DARE (Qu. P6, . . Kinds of worms . . used for bait) Inf CA120, Periwinkles—find under rocks in streams—have little shells on them—take off the shells; NV8, Periwinkle—a sort of worm found on rocks—in a cocoon; WA8, Pennywinkle, periwinkle, night crawler, grasshopper; (Qu. R4, A large winged insect that hatches in summer in great numbers around lakes or rivers, crowds around lights, lives only a day or so, and is good fish bait) Inf WA12, Larva is periwinkle. 1974 Daily News (Port Angeles WA) 20 Oct 7/1, The boy at the gas station pointed at the half-mashed insect on the radiator grill of my pickup and said, “Sure is a tough bug, isn’t it?” . . “It’s a periwinkle, I guess,” he continued. “No. It is a caddis fly,” I answered. Then I admitted that it is related to what is locally known as the periwinkle. The caddis fly is the adult stage of this little worm. 1996 Hafele–Hinton Guide Pacific NW Aquatic Invertebrates 20 OR, Family: Limnephilidae Genus: 35+ in Oregon alone Common Name: Periwinkle, Cinnamon Sedge, Dark Sedge. . . Habitat: Lakes, ponds, sloughs, small and large streams and rivers. . . Behavior: True case makers. 1998 NADS Letters wWA, My dad called a local fresh-water larva “periwinkle.” This creature was about an inch long, cream-colored body, black head, and built itself a full body-length cylindrical case out of cemented sand or small gravel particles. We found them in shallow water at the edges of fast-flowing streams. Used for bait. 1998 Ibid ceCA, We had periwinkles in the creeks in Bishop, California, east of the Sierra. They are little bug-like things that make their own tubes out of sand or other small bits from the stream (there were 2 kinds). Although we went fishing a lot, we didn’t use these as bait. 1999 DARE File ID, My Dad remembers that fishermen called caddisfly worms “periwinkles” on the Salmon River when he was a kid in the 1920s and 30s. Ibid eOR, Periwinkle is used for any cased caddis larva. I’m sure I heard the term in the 1950s in eastern Oregon. Ibid seWA, Periwinkle, pennywinkle—The cased larva of the caddis fly. Peri- seems the preferred pronunciation in Washington. Commonly used as fish bait, the caddis larva makes a shell of accreted sand and debris. . . I have encountered an instance of the term being applied to the hellgrammite, which is the free swimming larva of the Dobson fly. I don’t know if this was an error or an uncommon usage. 2001 Ibid ceCA (as of c1970), Two of the most fascinating (to me) creatures were periwinkles and heligramites. They are both similar, with some kind of insect living inside a self-made tube of tiny rocks. The heligramites . . had round tubes, and the rocks were larger than in the periwinkles, which I preferred. Periwinkles had a tapered, squarish case and the little rocks used were very tiny (sand-sized). They lived under rocks in the creek and we liked to pick them up and watch the creatures poke their heads out. Ibid NW, OR, WA, [Nine correspondents, 7 from WA, identify periwinkle as a caddis fly larva either explicitly or by description.] 2019 N. Coast Jrl. (Eureka CA) 8 Sept (Internet), When I was a boy, my dad introduced me to the joys and frustrations of trout fishing. In his opinion the best bait were what he called “periwinkles,” little bugs that cover themselves with twigs or stones and crawl around in creeks.
3 The larva of a crane fly n or similar creature, often used as bait. [Perh from its resemblance to the caseworm n (sense 2 above) when removed from its case. The attested geographic distributions of the two senses are against this, but it is possible that 2 was once more widespread than current evidence shows. Cf the parallel case of pennywinkle n 3 and 4.] GA
1938 U.S. Bur. Entomol. Insect Pest Surv. Bull. 18.56 cGA, Georgia. . : “Perrywinkles,” or larvae of a species of crane fly, are abundant in streams at Experiment. They are used for fish bait. 1986 Pederson LAGS Concordance, 1 inf, nwGA, Periwinkle [no context]; (Minnows) 1 inf, cGA, A periwinkle; (Earthworm) 1 inf, cGA, Periwinkles—large worms or fish? 2020 DARE File—Internet cwGA, I followed foot paths through thick woods, stepped across old log bridges to cross creeks and learned early to watch for snakes and poison. I dug periwinkles and worms for bait and was a patient fisherman.