A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
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caddisfly
The caddisfly is a moth-like insect whose larva lives underwater and builds itself a portable case out of whatever the streambed offers. It binds sand grains, snail shells, cut leaf, or twig sections together with silk spun from glands in its mouth. Each species builds to its own specification, so the case identifies the animal. Some species build no case at all and spin silk nets instead, strung across the current to strain food out of it.
Etymology
Caddis was a kind of worsted ribbon or braid, and the men who sold it door to door walked with samples pinned all over their coats. That sense is on record in English before the insect sense, and the larva walking around with its building materials stuck to itself is the same picture. The scientific name for the order goes after the adult instead: Trichoptera means hair-wing in Greek, because the wings carry fine hairs where a moth’s would carry scales.
Notes
The French artist Hubert Duprat gave caddis larvae gold flakes, pearls, and cut stones instead of gravel, and they built with them. Net-spinning caddis hold streambed gravel together with their silk mats and process a large share of the organic matter drifting past.