jacks-in-the-box

As Mark Occhilupo, Josh Constable and others skimmed effortlessly over water, popped up as swiftly as jacks-in-the-box and maneuvered along waves as if taking a morning stroll, I thought, this looks easy.

Joseph Satto: I Don't Regret Losing My Surfing Virginity To The Maldives Joseph Satto 2011

Hardly were the travelers clothed and armed when the reeds parted with a rattling noise, and three nude Indians, sepia-colored and crowned with tufts of hair like horses 'tails, leaped out like jacks-in-the-box.

Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 11, No. 23, February, 1873 Various

Even Murchison, however, made some recession from the belief of the Continental authorities, Élie de Beaumont and Leo - pold von Buch, who contended that the mountains had sprung up like veritable jacks-in-the-box.

A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume III: Modern development of the physical sciences 1904