Jumping Beans As A Novelty
When the bean is abruptly warmed (by being held in the palm of the hand, for example) the larva twitches and spasms, pulling on the threads and causing the characteristic hop. Leaving the beans in a heated environment (such as direct sunlight), however, can easily kill them.
The beans become active when one holds them in the hand (out of the box) for a few minutes. The beans should also appear to be a very slight shade of green on the side. If one shakes a bean near one's ear and hears a rattle inside, the larva inside has either died or entered the pupal stage where its hardened shell makes a softer rattle.
Jumping beans are still available for sale in the United States. In the UK, they were a common novelty item in the 1950s.
A plastic toy under this name was manufactured and sold in packages containing several devices in the 1960s. It resembled a "time release" capsule and had a metal ball inside. When the surface on which the capsule was laid was tilted, the ball would roll to the other end and make the capsule twitch.
Read more about this topic: Mexican Jumping Bean
Famous quotes containing the words jumping, beans and/or novelty:
“Unwind, hands,
you angel webs,
unwind like the coil of a jumping jack,
cup together and let yourselves fill up with sun
and applaud, world,
applaud.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“When my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop. It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor I that hoed beans; and I remembered with as much pity as pride, if I remembered at all, my acquaintances who had gone to the city to attend the oratorios.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A barnacle goose
Far up in the stretches of night; night splits and the dawn breaks loose;
I, through the terrible novelty of light, stalk on, stalk on;
Those great sea-horses bare their teeth and laugh at the dawn.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)