Masauji Hachisuka

Masauji Hachisuka
蜂須賀 正氏
Hachisuka in 1929
Born	(1903-02-15)February 15, 1903 Tokyo, Japan
Died	May 14, 1953(1953-05-14) (aged 50) Atami, Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Alma mater	Cambridge University
Scientific career
Fields	Zoology, Ornithology
Author abbrev. (zoology)	Hachisuka

Masauji Hachisuka (蜂須賀 正氏, Hachisuka Masauji, February 15, 1903 Tokyo – May 14, 1953 Atami), 18th Marquess Hachisuka, was a Japanese nobleman, ornithologist and aviculturist.^[1][2]

Biography

Hachisuka was born in Tokyo, the great grandson of the 11th shōgun Tokugawa Ienari and also nephew of the last shōgun Prince Tokugawa,^[3] He moved to England at the age of nineteen to complete his education. He was supported by his father's friend Baron Hayashi in England and studied zoology for five years at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where his interest in birds grew considerably with encouragement from Dr. Francis Guillemard and A. H. Evans, culminating in his inclusion at the British Ornithologists' Union.^[4]

Hachisuka went to expeditions in Iceland (1925), North Africa (1927) and also Belgian Congo. After graduating in Cambridge in 1927, he returned to Japan, travelling via the United States along Jean Delacour, with whom he visited China and Korea later. In 1928–9, he went to the Philippine Islands to study the distribution of the local avifauna. The study was published in 1932–3 in the two-volume set "Birds of the Philippine Islands" after returning to London and working his collection at the British Museum and at Tring.^[4] He also wrote extensively on the birds of Egypt, Iceland, Hainan and Formosa.^[5]

Although he intended to return to Japan after his father's death, as he was needed to take up his position as head of the family, an illness forced him to remain in California until 1938. There, he married Chiyeko Nagamine from Los Angeles, on March 7, 1939; the couple had a daughter.^[1][2][4]

After the war he worked on an account of the birds of the Mascarenes Islands. He died after a brief illness in 1953 in Atami, Japan, and his work was published posthumously (The Dodo and Kindred Birds).^[1][2][4] He was also working on a book about the birds of China when he died from a heart ailment.^[5][6]

Ancestry

Hachisuka's uncle Tokugawa Yoshinobu was the last shogun of Tokugawa.^[7][6]

References