The reaction 206Pb(t, p) 208Pb was investigated at an incident energy of 12 MeV, the protons being momentum analysed in a multi-angle magnetic spectrograph. A total of 56 excited states of 208Pb was observed up to an excitation energy of 7.6 MeV. Strong excitations were found for the ground state, the 2.62 MeV 3 − state and the 3.20 MeV 5 − state, but the 3.71 MeV 5 − state was not observed. The different behaviour of these states in (d, p), (t, p) and inelastic scattering experiments is discussed. A state at 4.87 MeV in 208Pb is assigned 0 + from the shape of the corresponding (t, p) angular distribution which has deep minima at 35° and about 75°. No other excited 0 + states of 208Pb could be identified from the (t, p) data. It is demonstrated that the existence of two or three sharp minima, the positions of which depend smoothly on the mass number, is a characteristic feature of L = 0 (t, p) angular distributions over a wide range of nuclei. For L = 3 and L = 5 the Pb(t, p) angular distributions at 12 MeV bombarding energy have less characteristic shape than for L = 0.