I copy/pasted this right off the ml site:
Racial Abilities
Night Sight
Elves always have the effect of a full strength Night Sight spell.
Infused with Magic
Elves have an increased energy resistance cap. Elven players must still increase their actual resistances through normal means (i.e. through equipment and magical effects).
Knowledge of Nature
Elves receive an increase to their chance of acquiring special resources such as colored ore when mining or special boards when lumberjacking.
Difficult to Track
Elves are more difficult to track than humans.
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so, yes, elfs have an increased chance of finding special resources
I will give you an example of how it seems to work to me. Lets say one human and one elf each chop the same tree and each time each gets 100 logs total.
I have observed that a human when he finds colored wood would get something like 80 regular wood and 20 oak for a total of 100. Where as my elf would get around 40 regular wood and 60 oak for a total of 100. These numbers are not exact. I was just trying to point out that if you harvest the exact same number of logs with a human and an elf, the elf will find a greater number of colored woods than a human.