Watching some children trying to catch butterflies one hot August afternoon, I was reminded of an incident in my own childhood. When I was a boy of 12 in South Carolina, something happened to me that cured me forever of wanting to put any wild creature in a cage. We lived on the edge of a wood, and every evening at dusk the mockingbirds would come and rest in the tree and sing. There isn't a musical instrument made by man that can produce a more beautiful sound than the song of the mockingbird. I decided that I would catch a young bird and keep it in a cage and that way have my own private musician. I finally succeeded in catching one and put it in a cage. At first, in its fright at being captured, the bird fluttered about the cage, but eventually it settled down in its new home, I felt very pleased with myself and looked forward to some beautiful singing from my tiny musician. I had left the cage out on our back porch , and on the second day of the bird's captivity my new pet's mother flew to the cage with food in her mouth . The baby bird ate everything she brought to it. I was pleased to see this. Certainly the mother knew better than I how to feed her baby. The following morning when I went to see how my captive was doing, I discovered it on the floor of the cage, dead. I was shocked! What had happened? I had taken excellent care of my little bird, or so I thought. Arthur Wayne, the famous _ , happened to be visiting my father at the time and, hearing me crying over the death of my bird, explained what had occurred: "A mother mockingbird, finding her young in a cage, will sometimes bring it poison berries. She thinks it better for her young to die than to live in captivity." Never since then have I caught any living creature and put it in a cage. All living creatures have a right to live free. The mockingbird died because  _  .
it ate some poisonous food the boy gave it by mistake it ate the poisonous food its mother gave it it was frightened to death it refused to eat anything