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.
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Biography
Hachisuka was born in Tokyo on February 15, 1903 to Lady Hachisuka Fudeko and Marquess Hachisuka Masaaki, a marquis and Vice-Chairman of the House of Peers. He was the great grandson of the 11th shōgun Tokugawa Ienari, and the nephew of the last shōgun Prince Tokugawa.
He attended the Gakushūin (学習院), or Peers' School, in Tokyo before moving to England at age 19 to complete his education. In England he was supported by Baron Hayashi Gonsuke, the Japanese Ambassador in London and a friend of his father’s, and was admitted in 1924 to study zoology at Magdalene College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, his interest in birds grew considerably with encouragement from naturalist Dr. Francis Guillemard and British ornithologist A. H. Evans, leading him to join the British Ornithologists' Union and attend British Ornithologists' Club dinners.
As an undergraduate, Hachisuka went on expeditions to Iceland in 1925 (with his A Handbook of the Birds of Iceland being published a few years later in 1927) and to North Africa with German ornithologist Dr. Ernst Hartert in 1927. Although obituaries by his friends reference his having graduated in 1927, there are no records of him ever having taken the preliminary examinations or of his graduation. In 1927, he returned to Japan through the United States with French ornithologist Jean Théodore Delacour, with whom he would later go on to visit China and Korea.