In "Alice and Wonderland" what animals are used for balls in the game of croquet?

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (commonly shortened to "Alice in Wonderland") is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll.

It tells of a girl named Alice falling through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children. It is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre.

In Chapter Eight, Alice is supposed to recognize the game, but it features very different materials and customs than the above-ground version. Carroll notes that Alice “had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life: it was all ridges and furrows: the croquet balls were live hedgehogs and the mallets live flamingoes.

Alice has a difficult time breaking from her preconceived notions and adjusting to life in Wonderland, for example, this different way of croquet. In this game, players fight and do not take turns, which would have been very different from the upper-class version that Alice is probably accustomed to. Furthermore, the presence of this absurd game of croquet echoes Carroll’s sentiment that everything in Wonderland is absurd and feels like some sort of cruel game.