"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.
"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.
"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 I've tried banks, and I've tried hedges," the pigeon went on without attending to her, "but them serpents! There's no pleasing 'em!"