out of its mouth,
and got down off the mushroom, and crawled away into the grass,
merely remarking as it went; "the top will make you grow taller,
and the stalk will make you grow shorter."

"The top of what? the stalk of what?" thought Alice.

"Of the mushroom," said the caterpillar, just as if she had asked
it aloud, and in another moment was out of sight.

Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute,
and then picked it and carefully broke it in two, taking the
stalk in one hand, and the top in the other.

[Illustration]

"Which does the stalk do?" she said, and nibbled a little bit of
it to try; the next moment she felt a violent blow on her chin:
it had struck her foot!

She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but as
she did not shrink any further, and had not dropped the top of
the mushroom, she did not give up hope yet. There was hardly room
to open her mouth, with her chin pressing against her foot, but
she did it at last, and managed to bite off a little bit of the
top of the mushroom.

* * * * *

"Come! my head's free at last!" said Alice in a tone of delight,
which changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that
her shoulders were nowhere to be seen: she looked down upon an
immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of
a sea of green leaves that lay far below her.

[Illustration]

"What can all that green stuff be?" said Alice, "and where have
my shoulders got to? And oh! my poor hands! how is it I ca'n't
see you?" She was moving them about as she spoke, but no result
seemed to follow, except a little rustling among the leaves. Then
she tried to bring her head down to her hands, and was delighted
to find that her neck would bend about easily in every direction,
like a serpent. She had just succeeded in bending it down in a
beautiful zig-zag, and was going to dive in among the leaves,
which she found to be the tops of the trees of the wood she had
been wandering in, when a sharp hiss made her draw back: a large
pigeon had flown into her face, and was violently beating her
with its wings.

[Illustration]

"Serpent!" screamed the pigeon.

"I'm not a serpent!" said Alice indignantly, "let me alone!"

"I've tried every way!" the pigeon said desperately, with a kind
of sob: "nothing seems to suit 'em!"

"I haven't the least idea what you mean," said Alice.

"I've tried the roots of trees, and