They are gadabouts and they expend themselves in motion as a defense mechanism by which to avoid their own thoughts.
"Corpus of a Siam Mosquito"
Steven Sills
Cats are domestic animals, your shrew-mice are sad gadabouts: you can't find a better model, any Kitty, than the ladies of Bubastis!"
"The Caxtons, Part 6"
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Women, especially the younger of them, are become gadabouts, chatterers in the public ways, idle, adorners of their vain selves, pamperers of their frail tabernacles-" Winsome threw down the book and almost trod upon it as upon a snake.
"The Lilac Sunbonnet"
S.R. Crockett