486 MR. G. BENTHAM ON COMPOSIT X. 
comparative antiquity of existence (a geological question, upon 
whieh I have no right to form any opinion), nor yet the novelty or 
antiquity of our knowledge of them ; for Australia, the most recent 
of our important discoveries, must in phytogeography be included 
in the Old World ; and the terms Western and Eastern Conti- 
nents, as applied by inhabitants of Western Europe or Eastern 
America, must be reversed by the inhabitants of Eastern Asia 
or Western America. I must observe also that in the Tables given 
in the following pages the numbers of genera and especially of 
species must never be taken as absolute; they are at best approxi- 
mative only, and in some instances may be purely conjectural : they 
are, however, the best I have been able to arrive at without a 
careful working-out of the whole of the species known, which 
would be too many years’ labour for me to undertake. Further 
discoveries would likewise require considerable modifications * ; and 
to those who do not agree with me as to the cireumseription of 
genera and species, the absolute numbers might be very different. 
1 have endeavoured, however, to keep as much as possible to a 
uniform standard in this respect; aud if the same course be adopted 
by those who inultiply or reduce distinetions, the comparative 
results will probably remain nearly the same. 
1. General Repartition of Composite between the New and the 
Old World. 
In these Tables are included, in the American or New- World 
division, the West-Indian Islands, and in the Old- World division 
the Eastern Archipelago and Australia. The Sandwich and South- 
Sea Islands, the Galapagos, Juan Fernandez, St. Helena, the 
Atlantic Islands, the Mascarene group, and New Zealand, not- 
withstanding the American character of the Composite of the 
first groups, and the Old-World connexions of those of the last 
three, are here omitted ; for their endemic races affect very little 
the general repartition between the two great divisions of the 
globe, and their geographical peculiarities appear to require con- 
sideration under distinct heads. The numbers given, both of 
genera and species, are intended to apply to natives only, or races 
which may have been anciently established without the interven- 
tion of man, to the exclusion of modern colonists. 
* Two or three new genera and a few new species received since this paper 
was placed in the printers’ hands, would already require some slight changes in 
a few of the figures of some of the following Tables. 
