Pisaura Mirabilis Poem by Giles Watson

Pisaura listeri (formerly mirabilis) is a comparatively large wolf-spider, often seen in meadows and alongside hedgerows. The male woos his mate by offering her a dead fly or other insect, wrapped up in a silk parcel. After breeding, the female is very distinctive, for she carries her large, globe-shaped cocoon beneath her sternum, grasped firmly by her falces and palps, and may be seen hurrying about in this fashion over seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Before the eggs hatch, she constructs a silken tent, making use of the tops of grass stems as supports, and hangs the cocoon within it. After hatching, she continues to assist them by tearing the tent open to let them out. The process is illustrated by a series of photographs in Theodore H. Savory, The Spiders and Allied Orders of the British Isles, London,1945, Pls.29,32,35,37,40.