Ishikawa Chiyomatsu was born in Edo as a son of a high-ranking samurai, a Hatamoto.

But the Meiji Restoration occurred and when the Tokugawa shogunate collapsed, he moved to Sunpu (Shizuoka prefecture) in 1867.

His was taught by Montague Arthur Fenton, which influenced Chiyomatsu to start a collection of butterflies.

After Morse left Japan, his teachers were Charles Otis Whitman and Kakichi Mitsukuri.

After graduating from the Tokyo Imperial University, he studied in Germany under eminent evolutionary theorist August Weismann.