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Barney Tomberlin is a lizard man, a snake man, and a bug man. Where he lives, there is no real mayor. He is the unofficial mayor of his town.
I found Barney in his yard, watching a tarantula cross the sand. We greeted each other. Barney continued watching the giant spider.
Barney captures snakes, tarantulas, lizards, and beetles for television programs and movies. Afterward, he releases them in their natural environments.
Barney's traps are a series of fences—one foot high and fifteen feet long—set in remote sections of desert. This kind of trap leaves the captives unhurt. He lets them go free afterwards.
Barney showed me how to pull a beetle from a can with a pair of tweezers. I was nervous about the bark scorpions. They can deliver a painful sting. I knew someone who had been stung by one. He had to go to the hospital.
"I've been stung a few times," Barney said. "I'm still around to talk about it."
Barney and I spent the afternoon collecting seven hairy tarantulas, two beetles, and six millipedes.
At sundown Barney reappeared, soot-faced and tired. As I drove down the mountain, I hit a sharp rock, which ripped a tire.
"You have a flat," Barney said.
I changed the tire while Barney watched. When we were under way again, he explained why he hadn't helped me with the flat.
He had been a firefighter. Then he'd had a heart attack. His doctor told him that he had only a year to live and he shouldn't do heavy work. "That's why I didn't help you. I can walk around and tell people what to do, but I can't do much myself," he said.
Suddenly, Barney yelled at me to stop. He'd seen something by the side of the road. "This is a great find," he said, holding the beetle close to his face. "This is a beauty. Perfect."
"It's been that kind of day," I said, smiling. "Just about perfect."
Barney didn't hear me. He was busy examining the beetle as it crawled across the palm of his hand.
3. Locate the word hairy in the passage above. The root of the word hairy is
A. hair.
B. air.
C. ry.
D. y.
What is
A. hair