In article ,
Lar wrote:

Jonathan Sachs wrote:

A friend of mine has asked me to help her identify something she found
in her garden this week. She noticed that the soil under one of her
plants appeared to be moving. When she looked closer, she found a
large number of small, light-colored things, the size of a poppy seed
or somewhat smaller, that appeared to be jumping around.

I thought at first that the things must be insects or larvae, but she
told me that they are round, with no identifiable features. She says
that they appear to be eggs.

Her location is in the vicinity of California's Sacramento Valley.

She made a short video of the jumping eggs, which I am posting on the
Web. She couldn't get close enough to make it show detail of
individual "eggs," but it shows the movement pretty clearly.

http://www.amphigoricbooks.com/jumping-egg.WMV

Does anyone know what these things could be?

I would guess her garden is under an oak tree... have her look up
Jumping Oak Gall. Interesting little creature that can appear time to
time when conditions are right. There is a tiny wasp larvae inside.

Lar

Your description reminds me of Mexican Jumping beans. The rage in the
early 1950's.

Bill

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_jumping_bean

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