Multinucleon transfer processes in<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mmultiscripts><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Ca</mml:mi><mml:mprescripts/><mml:none/><mml:mrow><mml:mn>40</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:mmultiscripts><mml:mo>+</mml:mo><mml:mmultiscripts><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Pb</mml:mi><mml:mprescripts/><mml:none/><mml:mrow><mml:mn>208</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:mmultiscripts></mml:math>

Multinucleon transfer reactions in $^{40}\mathrm{Ca}+^{208}\mathrm{Pb}$ have been studied at bombarding energies close to the Coulomb barrier. Projectilelike fragments have been identified in nuclear mass and charge with a time-of-flight spectrometer. Angular and total kinetic energy loss distributions and inclusive cross sections have been compared with those of semiclassical models. The analysis shows that a successive transfer mechanism of single nucleons does not account for the data, and a direct nucleon pair transfer has to be included in the description. Nucleon evaporation effects are taken into account.