The Jungle Book - Chapters

Chapters

The complete book, having passed into the public domain, is on-line at Project Gutenberg's official website and elsewhere. Each of the even-numbered items below is an epigrammatic poem related to the previous story.

1. "Mowgli's Brothers": A boy is raised by wolves in the Indian Jungle with the help of Baloo the bear and Bagheera the black panther, and then has to fight the tiger Shere Khan. This story has also been published as a short book in its own right: Night-Song in the Jungle
2. "Hunting-Song of the Seeonee Pack"
3. "Kaa's Hunting": This story takes place before Mowgli fights Shere Khan. When Mowgli is abducted by monkeys, Baloo and Bagheera set out to rescue him with the aid of Chil the Kite and Kaa the python. Maxims of Baloo.
4. "Road Song of the Bandar-Log"
5. "Tiger! Tiger!": Mowgli returns to the human village and is adopted by Messua and her husband who believe him to be their long-lost son Nathoo. But he has trouble adjusting to human life, and Shere Khan still wants to kill him. The story's title is taken from the poem "The Tyger" by William Blake.
6. "Mowgli's Song"
7. "The White Seal": Kotick, a rare white-furred Northern fur seal, searches for a new home for his people, where they will not be hunted by humans. The "animal language" words and names in this story are a phonetic spelling of Russian spoken with an Aleut accent, for example "Stareek!" (= Старик!) = "old man!", "Ochen scoochnie" (said by Kotick) = "I am very lonesome" = Очень скучный (correctly means "very boring"), holluschick (plural -ie) (= холостяк, pl. -и = "bachelor") (used in the story for "unmarried" young adult seals).
8. "Lukannon"
9. "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi": Rikki-Tikki the mongoose defends a human family living in India against a pair of cobras. This story has also been published as a short book.
10. "Darzee's Chaunt"
11. "Toomai of the Elephants": Toomai, a ten-year old boy who helps to tend working elephants, is told that he will never be a full-fledged elephant-handler until he has seen the elephants dance. This story has also been published as a short book.
12. "Shiv and the Grasshopper"
13. "Her Majesty's Servants" (originally titled "Servants of the Queen"): On the night before a military parade a British soldier eavesdrops on a conversation between the camp animals.
14. "Parade-Song of the Camp Animals" parodies several well-known songs and poems, including Bonnie Dundee.